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left a gay widow, you will also be a penniless one."

"I don't want your money!" she exclaimed, passionately. "I would not touch one penny of it. I shall leave you, and go back to my father!"

"Ask leave first. Mr. and Mrs. Osborne are a most united couple in the eyes of the world-a perfect Darby and Joan-and so we shall continue; don't dare to make a scene and have my name spoken of in the neighborhood" he cried. And with this parting injunction, Mr. Osborne left the

room.

His miserable wife tottered to the sofa and buried her face in the cushions. Her husband's surmises were every one correct -she, wretched woman that she was, had been trying to stifle and keep down the yearnings of her heart; but at times it would break from her control, and an overwhelming passion for sympathy and congenial companionship would utterly overcome her; and then, in spirit, she saw a plain grave face and a pair of tender pitying eyes, and her swift thoughts flew over the sea, and she saw the red field of battle, heard the cannon booming, saw the flower of England cut down, and through it all her mind's eye followed one stalwart form; then-then the mental picture became horribly vivid, and, as her husband had remarked, she feverishly scanned the records of carnage which day by day appeared in the newspapers, unutterably thankful when each day passed over and no mention was made of the name she so eagerly sought for.

Another summer passed away, and the autumn that ensued brought many changes. Mr. MacAlister failed utterly in business, and a stroke of paralysis was but the consummation of the end which he had been anticipating many months before. In the midst of her grief for her father, the autumn brought a daughter to Gracie, much to the annoyance and disappointment of her husband, who anxiously wished for a son; but an end was soon put to his disappointment, for the baby was hardly two months old when Mr. Osborne was carried home one night cold and dead. He had been thrown from his horse while returning in a state of intoxication from a dinner-party, and concussion of the brain had ensued.

CHAPTER V.

AFTER the death of her father, her mother had come to live with Gracieforced to do so by the very urgent reason that there was nowhere else for her to go to; the old home of Gracie's childhood and youth had therefore passed away. With the death of her husband the means of subsistence for herself and her child were likewise gone, and the affairs of the estate having been wound up, she found herself the possessor of but a few hundred pounds in the world, while a delicate mother and a helpless baby looked to her for support.

Gracie Osborne sat alone by her child's cradle one night a short time after her husband's death. Her bright silky hair was plainly banded beneath that hideous headgear, the conventional widow's cap, her black dress hung in heavy folds round her slight figure, and her almost transparently white hands lay listlessly upon her lap. There she sat thinking, thinking, thinking how she was to find daily bread for herself and her baby. At length she rose quickly, and, proceeding to her mother's bedroom, she gently opened the door and advanced towards the bed, saying, in a low voice: "Are you asleep, mother?" "No, dear," she replied; thing the matter?"

"is there any

"O no!" said Gracie; "I merely came in to say that I think I shall go over to the Rectory early to-morrow morning. I want to consult Mr. Dormer about some business."

"Very well, dear," said her mother.

"And I shall probably not return tomorrow night," she continued. "You will take care of my darling, mother?"

For answer her mother drew her towards her and kissed her.

Early the next morning Gracie ordered the carriage-now, alas! hers no longerand drove to the Rectory, which was about seven miles from Netterton Hall. She was received with as much warmth of affection and free-hearted hospitality as in the days of her prosperity, each one vieing with the other to make her feel that she still held the same old place in their hearts.

"It is so good of you to come, Gracie. But why did you not bring the baby?" asked Miss Dormer.

"I come on business-that is why I am here so early," she replied. "I was afraid I should miss seeing your father."

"You are not going to speak about business until you eat a good breakfast," said Mrs. Dormer.

“Would you like to come and speak with me in the study, Gracie?" said Mr. Dormer.

"Not unless you wish it particularly," she replied. "The truth is, I came here to talk over my prospects, and to ask for some advice as to what you think I ought to do towards earning a livelihood for myself and my child." And, as the young widow said these words, the poor pale sad face flushed, and the tears welled up in the great violet eyes.

Of course all the good-hearted girls and their mother wept for sympathy. The rector blew his nose in a suspicious manner, and it was some minutes ere he said, laying his hand kindly on Gracie's shoulder:

"Don't fret, my child; thank God that he has put the thought into your heart. Work is no disgrace."

"But I don't know what work I am fit for," said Gracie, desperately. "I am not competent to become a teacher; and, even if I were, I could not leave my child."

"No, certainly not, poor little darling!' was chorused by the girls.

"Quiet-quiet, now!" said the rector. "Could you not teach young children?"

"I dare say I could. I know I understand music well; but, as I said before, I cannot leave my child."

"Could you take pupils at home?" inquired the rector.

"Recollect, Augustus dear," interrupted Mrs. Dormer, "how very badly teachers are paid."

"I have thought of that myself," said Gracie," and, as I sat thinking last night, an idea came into my head; but I am half afraid to broach it to you."

"Why should you be afraid to tell us anything, Gracie ?" asked Mrs. Dormer. "Did you not come here for advice?"

"Come, Gracie, let us have the benefit of this very wise idea of yours," said the rector, seeing that she hesitated. "But, first of all, how much money have you?" "Only between six and seven hundred pounds," she replied.

"What a lot of money, Gracie?'' exclaimed Mary Dormer. "I don't see why you need do anything."

Gracie smiled sadly. Adversity had taught her a lesson; she knew that the

money she possessed was very good as something against a rainy day, but she knew that it would soon melt away unless there were something coming in for daily wants.

"I was thinking," she said, nervously looking from one to the other, " of opening some kind of business."

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Capital!" said Miss Dormer, energetically. "I am sure a good dressmaker's establishment in Dublin would succeed." "What do you say to it, Mrs. Dormer ?" asked Gracie.

"You brave little thing!" said the kindhearted woman, rising and kissing her. "But what do you know about business, dear ?"

"Nothing yet," she replied; "but I could learn. Some of your girls seem horrified at the idea."

"I am sorry they are so foolish and little-minded," said the rector, gravely. "I consider you deserve the highest praise, Mrs. Osborne, and I highly approve of your plan."

"And so do I," said Katie Dormer; "and when I'm going to be married I'll get you to make all my dresses."

"Katie says that, Gracie," put in another of the seven, "because she thinks you'll do them cheaply."

"Be quiet, girls," said Mrs. Dormer; "this is no laughing matter. We must see what can be done for Gracie."

Quietly and steadily the matter was talked over by Mrs. Dormer and her clearheaded practical daughters, and the result of their deliberations was that, as Gracie would leave Netterton Hall the following week, Mrs. MacAlister and the baby should be transported to the Rectory, whilst Mrs. Dormer and Gracie went to Dublin to see what could be done towards establishing the latter in business.

But a great many details had to be considered, and the Christmas snow was on the ground ere Gracie was installed in comfortable apartments in a leading Dublin street, and a respectable person, well known to Mrs. Dormer, engaged as general manager. The tenderly-reared Gracie Osborne was fairly launched upon the great ocean of life, to fight her way as best she might against the billows and breakers of trial which each one of us who ever means to breast the waves and gain the goal must inevitably meet.

CHAPTER VI.

PEACE was proclaimed. War was over. All Dublin seemed half mad with joy on that bright day in the early summer of 1856 when the joyful tidings were officially proclaimed in various parts of the city. Many a woman's heart sent forth a cry of thankfulness, while the men stood with heads reverently uncovered, and thanked the good God who had mercifully put an end to the slaughter which had made so many women childless and widows.

And then there came another day-a day on which some remnants of the war-worn regiments came home. The daily papers were loud in their praises of their valor and daring; and second to none in bearing away the palm for bravery were the gallant

Rangers, at the head of which rode Colonel Edgar Vilmar.

Gracie saw the expected arrival of the regiment announced in the newspapers, and she knew that on their way to barracks the troops would have to pass her house. Old memories arose and stirred the depths of her heart as she read Edgar Vilmar's well-remembered name; and then, sensible little woman as she was, she wiped away a few tears which would impertinently intrude themselves, and said to herself how foolish she was; for what could the great and brave Colonel Vilmar have in common with Grace Osborne, milliner and dressmaker?

But now the inspiring sound of military music was heard approaching, mingled with the "huzzas" of the crowd. Nearer and still nearer the music came. A blueeyed baby came creeping along the floor, and one little hand plucked at Gracie's dress, while another pointed to the window, and a baby voice cried, 66 Mammacome-mamma!" And Gracie obeyed, and the first face her eyes rested upon was that of Edgar Vilmar, plainer, more rugged looking than of yore, but yet Edgar Vilmar, returned covered with glory, and apparently safe and well. She had only a glance at his face, and he passed from her sight.

After a short time sickness began to make havoc amongst the troops. Notwithstanding the cold wintry weather, fever ran high, and a rumor spread throughout the city that the brave and beloved Colonel Vilmar was stricken down by it and lay sick-sick even almost unto death. On Christmas Day Gracie knelt at her prayers,

and with trembling lips prayed "for all sick persons," and "for one-O, for one in particular!" and the prayer was granted. Edgar Vilmar did not die, though for many days he lay hovering between life and death.

Lady Beckham was one of Gracie's chief patronesses; she was a kind, bustling, ladylike woman, and the pretty pale face and gentle well-bred manners of the young widow had deeply interested her. Entering Gracie's show-rooms one day early in February, she said, laughingly:

"I have not been a very good customer lately, Mrs. Osborne, yet I am come now to ask you to do me a favor."

"I shall be happy to oblige you in any way in my power, Lady Beckham," said Gracie, who could not help liking the kindhearted woman, who always treated her as a lady.

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'Well," continued the lady, "my brother, Colonel Vilmar, is a great invalid, and I want to have a dressing-gown made for him out of this Indian material." And she displayed a costly piece of some gorgeous Eastern fabric. "I know it is not in your line," she continued, "but it is too costly to entrust to other hands to make up; so that is why I have asked you."

Gracie accepted the task, and no hands but her own pretty ones accomplished it. It was a labor of love, and truly the garment was baptized with many a secret tear.

The dressing-gown was just finished, and was to be sent home the next morning. Gracie was industriously working at some of the embroidery of the collar, when, to her dismay, she found that she had used up all the sewing-silk of the required color. What was to be done? It was late at night -all the shops were shut, and the garment was positively to be home before nine the next morning. Her exclamation of dismay roused her mother, who was dozing by the fire.

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required. She returned to the room, and, her mother dozing off again, she soon completed her self-imposed task.

But what has happened to Gracie? The costly dressing-gown lay in a tumbled heap upon the carpet, as, with flushed burning cheeks, and eyes from which the hot blinding tears fell thick and fast, she read a few lines which were written on the paper round which the silk was wound. Ah! the tears were of joy, for at last she held in her hand Edgar Vilmar's valentine!

"He loved me! he loved me !" she cried. "I knew it-I felt he did! Heaven bless him, forgive those who came between us, and help me!"

She folded up the precious paper and placed it in her bosom, and, covering up the dressing-gown, left it ready with orders to be delivered at Lady Beckham's the first thing in the morning.

*

"Take care, Davis-some paper dropped out of that dressing-gown. Hand it to me," said Colonel Vilmar to his servant as he unfolded the gorgeous garment.

He opened the paper, and, as he looked at the contents, could hardly believe the evidence of his senses. Yes, there it was

-his own valentine, in his own handwriting, addressed to the woman whose image was imprinted upon his heart, and the strong pure love for whom had kept him clear from many a temptation. He had only heard of her family's misfortunes and her husband's death just as the fever had stricken him.

"Do you know who made that dressinggown, Davis ?" he asked.

"Yes sir-Mrs. Osborne, Lady Beckham's dressmaker."

"Do you know where she lives ?" "No sir," was the reply.

"Then find out. And see here, Davishave a car at the door for me immediately after breakfast, and be ready to come out with me without letting any one know."

He had found her-his little love-the one love of his whole life! And not many weeks afterwards the bells of Saint Anne's Church rang out a merry peal, and Edgar Vilmar and Grace Osborne were quietly married, the business of the latter having been entirely made over to the faithful woman who, as manager, had so carefully guarded and looked after her mistress's interests.

CURIOSITIES OF SUPERSTITION.

BY REV. DR. H. STANDISH.

LOUIS NAPOLEON in his will emphasizes the solemn declaration, "With regard to my son, let him keep as a talisman the seal I used to wear attached to my watch." This piece of fetichism would appear to have formed yet another link between the imperial exile that has passed from our midst and those Latin races whose cause he affected to represent, whose superstition he certainly shared. Indeed, the ancient Romans degraded a priest because his mitre fell, and unmade a dictator because a rat squeaked. Cæsar crossed the Rubicon, because, on the opposite bank, he saw a man with a fine figure. His nephew felt confident of winning the battle of Actium, because he met a peasant of the name of Nicolaus mounted on an ass. Wolsey was warned of his doom by a crosier-head; Sejanus, by a flight of crows. Dr. Johnson objected to going under a ladder. Montaigne avoided giving his left foot priority in putting on his stockings. Alexander was believed to have untied the Gordian knot with a slice

of his sword. For good luck's sake, Augustus wore some portion of a sea-calf; Charlemagne, some trinket of unknown value. Mohammed was all Fate; Bonaparte, all Star and Destiny. Cromwell believed in September 3, and Louis Napoleon in December 2. Sulla called himself Felix, the favored Child of Fortune, and TimoJeon turned his house into a Temple of Chance. Alexander, if we may credit the account given by Quintus Curtius, was terrified by blood flowing from inside his soldier's bread during the siege of Tyre in 332 B.C. His seer, Aristander, foresaw, in this crimson efflux of the vital stream out of the commissariat a happy issue for the Macedonians; and the warriors thus nerved, took Tyre. From the year 1004, the alarming spectacle of the bleeding Host, and bread, as well as the bewitched bloody milk, several times in each century gave simple folk a scare; thus, it was noticed in 1264, under Urban IV., at Bolsena, not far from Civita Vecchia; and Raphael has

taken this for the subject of his picture called the Miraculo de Bolsena, which is, at all events, a miracle of the pencil. In 1383, when Heinreich von Bulow destroyed the village and church of Wilsnach, drops of blood were found eight days afterwards on the Host placed on the altar.

But the victims of superstition have the bump of causality remarkably developed; and in 1510, thirty-eight Jews were burnt to ashes because they had tortured the consecrated Host until it bled. Again, the sight was seen on the Moselle in 1824; and in 1848 the famous Ehrenberg analyzed the terrible portent. After stooping with his microscope over the red stains on bread, cheese and potatoes, this savant declared that they are caused by small monads or vibrios, which have a red color, and are so minute that from 46,656,000,000 to 884,736,000,000,000 distinct beings adorn the space of one cubic inch. Unfortunately, when, in 1510, thirty-eight Israelites, as we have seen, were burnt to ashes, no scientific Ehrenberg existed to point out to their superstitious butchers that what they called a proof of the consecrated Host being tortured until it bled, was merely due to aggregation of hungry red insects.

No doubt there was a deal of imposture in alchemy; no doubt, too, the wish for gold was father to the thought of alchemy; but this in itself will not account for Henry IV. prohibiting alchemy, for God-fearing Henry VI. eagerly encouraging it; for Pope John XXII. being an alchemist; for Louis XIII. of France making a Franciscan monk his grand-almoner, as the reward of a hundred years' reign promised to his credulity by that pretender to the discovery of the grand elixir; or for Jean de Lisle expiating by an early death in the Bastille his bold attempts to persuade Louis XIV. and his ministers that he possessed the gold-making stone. Among the wide circle of influential believers that alchemy thus entranced were Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas Aquinas; and even the transcendent intellects of Leibnitz, Spinoza and Verulam. However, in the pursuit of this phantom, Roger Bacon casually stumbled on the composition of gunpowder; Geber, on the properties of acids; Van Helmont, on the nature of gas geist or spirit; and Dr. Glauber of Amsterdam, on the uses of the salt which bears his name. Thus was the alchemist the

victim of fetichism, the slave of superstition, the worshipper of science, the conqueror of power. How much of alchemy was an imposture, how much of it was an enthusiasm, it is impossible to say.

The secular practice of the science may be gleaned from M. Geoffroy's demonstration before the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1722, that alchemy was a matter of falsebottomed crucibles, hollow wands filled with gold, perforated lead and soldered nails. The religious theory of the science may be gathered from Faber's Propugnaculum Alchymia, published in 1644, wherein occurs the statement: "The stone of the philosopher is, by all the authors who have treated of it, esteemed to be the greatest gift of God on earth. As, therefore, it is so mighty a gift of God, the most necessary thing, in order that man should attain to a knowledge of its excellence and worth, is wisdom, which is bestowed by God on very few." Macaulay praises Verulam for his "fruit," his aim at substantial results. The meteoric iron which fell at Agram, in Croatia, was capable of being forged into nails-a meteor which ought to be known as Bentham's meteor. Judged, however, by results, as Lowe would say, Roger Bacon's gunpowder-producing alchemy has not been an unalloyed blessing to mankind.

Luther and Verulam believed in witches. In his folio Dictionary, Johnson defines a witch, “A woman given to unlawful arts." Knighton tells us of persons taxed with keeping devils in the shape of cats. And wise and learned Roman Catholics believe even greater wonders still. For example, Spain, among many images of the Virgin, possesses one at Saragossa which used to restore lost legs; Austria boasts an image of the Virgin at Marbach which secures good harvests; Styria is proud of the black lime-tree image of Mariazell, because it cures the gout; S. Maria in Campitelli, Rome, contains an image of the Virgin which stayed a pestilence there in 1569; S. Maria della Vittoria is protected by an image of the Virgin which defeats Turks; St. Giovanni a Carbonari, Naples, is blessed with an image of the Virgin which is a sure refuge against earthquakes and eruptions; Bogen, in Bavaria, and Notre Dame de Hanswyk, in Belgium, are each enriched with a curious hollow image of the Virgin which insists on swimming up the river.

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