As he stood thus, transfixed and aghast, his eyes were drawn downward by some irresistible spell to where the doubtful glimmer of the single candle at his side fell upon some glistening matter at his feet. He stooped and touched it, then started upright, glaring at his own finger which he had just dipped in a pool of bright red blood. Blood! blood! blood! Where would these horrors end? He untied the dead man's cravat, unbuttoned his shirt and waistcoat, laid bare his breast, and found there a purple openlipped wound, not large but deep, and clotted gore clinging to its lower edge and dyeing all beneath. It was too late. All help was in vain now. This wound was more than two hours old. The man was dead. His spirit had gone where human help avails not. Yet the house must be roused. Every corner must be searched. The police must be summoned immediately, and allowed to take the matter into their own hands. Harcourt would not think of Mrs. Treloar, of Edith-the sweet though wayward and petulant bride, the dead man's bride, the wife and widow in a breath. He had supped his full of horrors. He could bear no more. No woman's anguish for him now. No mad cry of the heart's despair. He could not endure so much as to think of it. Moving toward the bell-handle with outstretched hand, his feet suddenly refused to obey his will. His brain was near to bursting with the intense effort to hear more distinctly. A sound of something breathing in the room became distinctly audible. For a few moments it ceased, and Harcourt thought he had deceived himself. Then on a sudden there darted from under the drooping table-cloth a wild, weird phantom woman, in a long white robe, with great blue eyes glaring fearfully, and long yellow tresses floating and rippling all around her. She did not look at Harcourt but at some spot on the ground, which he took to be the pool of blood; but it was not so. She gazed intently for some time without uttering a sound; then pointed, and said, under her breath, "Do you see it? The amulet? There, there!" He followed the motion of her finger mechanically with his eyes, and did indeed see a gem, glistening and glowing like a ruby, in awful proximity to the blood. "Is it red?" she asked in a whisper which made Harcourt's blood curdle in his veins. "Is it red?" she repeated. Her voice or manner implied intense eagerness, yet the former scarcely rose above a whisper. "Red when he loves, and rosier red; And when he loves not, pale and blue." This she repeated several times, so gently and with such a pathos that it sounded less like a human voice than the sighing of the homeless wind among barren rocks and over desolate wastes. The horror melted out of Harcourt's frame at this pitiful prattling of a broken heart. He had no doubt now that she was the murderess. The bride had killed her lord. The virgin wife had made herself a widow. He saw now some glimpse of the secret source of her petulance and rebelliousness. Some subtle jealousy had been at work. The man who had erred in youth, but never as youth or man knowingly injured man, woman, or child, had died to satiate the fury of a girl as foolish as she was beautiful. Yet her beauty and her grief touched him. She ran up to him as he drew back from her. Her face had regained its serenity, and looked now like the face of a child; but her long golden tresses were dabbled with blood, and flapped against her white night-robe, leaving dreadful spots and lines. She held up the poor opal, similarly stained, in those gory fingers, and looking at Harcourt with one of her old smiles, which in former days had vanquished many a heart, said, "It is red now, George. Red, red-bloodred. It will never turn pale and blue again, George." Then seeing that Harcourt still drew back from her, and she, poor child, still taking him for her husband, ran up close to him, laid one hand on his arm, and looking at him with tearful eyes, said, "Oh, George! my lord and master! my own, only love! do not be angry with Edith on her wedding-day. Do forgive me. I did not mean it. Yes, I did mean it, but I repent." Here she fell on her knees at Harcourt's feet. "I repent, George. I was naughty. I was jealous. I had a letter while you were out. They told me that lie. I know it was a lie. Pardon! pardon! Am I not your own, ownest, only little girl?" The Honorable Mr. Harcourt was fairly overcome, and had it not been for those awful stains on the white robe, and the presence of the dead, he would have wept for very sympathy with beauty in such distress. Prompted by those grim reminders, he spoke not, but pointed sadly at the silent body on the couch. She looked in his face once more. The truth flashed upon her. In a moment she sprang from his side, ran to the body of her husband, and gazed at it silently. Then her reason took flight with a spasm, which drew "He loves me. He loves me," she contin- from her a yell so shrill, so full of agony and ued. "Me! me! Only me!" Then she ceased, and stooping tenderly picked up the gem. But as she did so some tresses of her luxuriant hair dipped into the awful pool. Next she dipped the opal in it with her fingers, and murmured softly to herself, remorse, that all the inanimate objects around vibrated to its tone, and the very room seemed to quiver with dismay. Harcourt told them to take the lady gently to | and ill-trained beauty frail! There had been her chamber; and she only left it the next day some germ of truth in that poisoned fruit. But in charge of a skilled nurse and two policemen retribution, though tardy, had been sufficiently in plain clothes, who took her to one of those severe. resorts which shelter such wrecks of passion and self-will from the prying curiosity of a censorious world. On her person was found an anonymous letter telling an ingenious tissue of malignant falsehoods about the murdered man. Alas! that youth should be wickedly self-indulgent, In the pocket of the murdered man was found a ring which contained two beautiful diamonds; but the space between them was vacant. The opal remained in possession of her to whom it had been given as a pledge of a love as sincere, loyal, and self-sacrificing as it is in the nature of human love to be. N the lower part of Broadway, on our waying field, with a few trees standing in clusters I down to the Battery, we met groups of im- near the entrance on Broadway, and in the migrants, newly landed, walking slowly along on the sidewalk, and bestowing a look of wonder on every thing they saw. Trinity Church and the new magnificent "Equitable Building" on the corner of Cedar Street seemed to be special objects of attention. In passing I heard a German woman say of the latter building, "Das muss der Palast sein," an opinion that seemed to be instantly shared by her companions. For a city without a "Palast" of some kind or other is an impossibility in Germany. At length we passed through the venerable iron gate into the Battery grounds. Sad sight! What was years ago a blooming garden is now a barren waste, on which hardly a sprouting grass is to be seen. It looks like a large drill back-ground looms Castle Garden, with its outbuildings, hospitals, and offices-all encircled by a large wooden wall. Before long the grounds will have assumed their old, almost forgotten, aspect; gangs of laborers are at work with pickaxe, shovel, and wheel-barrow, the whole ground is being surveyed and laid out, and before another summer we may hope to see the Battery as it ought to be-one of the most attractive parks in the city. The location could not be better. There is the fresh sea, with cooling breezes in the hot summer; nearly opposite lies Governor's Island; and in the distance the Jersey shore and the verdant hills of Staten Island. Here the groups of immigrants became more frequent, and as we approached the entrance | left side a roomy and cleanly kept wash-room to Castle Garden we found it almost impossible to make our way through, the passage was so blocked up with vehicles, peddlers of cheap cigars, apple-stands, and runners from the different boarding-houses and intelligence-offices that abound in the neighborhood. However, we succeeded in getting through, after encountering an outpouring stream of new arrivals, and being nearly deafened by the repeated shouts of "D'ye want a conveyance?" "Hotel Stadt Hamburg!" "Zum goldenen Adler!" "This way, gents, this way!" etc. for females, and on the opposite side one for males, both plentifully supplied with soap, water, and large clean towels on rollers, for the free and unlimited use of all immigrants. From these rooms we emerge into the rotunda the main feature of Castle Garden. The steamer Holland, from Liverpool, had just arrived, and the steerage passengers were being landed. It was a motley, interesting throng. Slowly, one by one, the new-comers passed the two officers whose duty it is to register every immigrant's name, birthplace, and desWe presented our passport to the officer on tination in large folios-a work that is often guard at the entrance, were admitted, and rather more difficult than it would first appear ushered into the yard of the Garden, amidst a to be. In the first place, the officer in charge crowd of passengers, children, and baggage of must be able to speak and understand nearly all kinds. Into this yard open the different every language under the sun. This, however, offices connected with the Garden. We enter can be learned and mastered; but then arises a the main building, which a sign over the tre- second difficulty-the remarkable want of inmendous doorway announces as "Castle Gar- telligence and the constantly recurring misapden" proper. Truly it looks like a "castle," prehension shown by some of the passengers. but the "garden" is less observable. Open These latter instances are very numerous, and port-holes stare us in the face as we approach, to deal with them requires a great deal of pabut excite no alarm. In the good old times, tience. Some of their answers are exceedingly when this pile was built for a castle, it must comical, as, for instance: a young fellow in have answered its purpose pretty well; the corduroy knee-breeches and nailed shoes was walls are at least fully six feet thick, and built asked in my presence if he was alone. "No, of heavy square blocks of brown stone, closely Sir," he said, boldly; and upon being asked who cemented. The old nail-studded gates of the was with him, then, he answered, "Sure my fort are there yet, but they are never closed box!" Another wanted to register two gamenow, a lighter and smaller gate having been cocks he had brought with him from Tipperary. made to supersede them. "Sure I paid for their passage," he said. Still Passing through the gateway, we have on the another-an old woman-on being asked her name, said that that was on her box, "an' if we wanted to know, sure we could go and see;" and upon being asked by a by-stander how, then, her box would be found, her answer was, "Ah, be jabers, an' isn't me name painted plainly on it?" It was with difficulty that her name was finally ascertained. Some do not understand a word of English, and can only speak Irish; but these are few, and are nearly always very old people. FAIL ROAD TICKET OFFE On they passed, one by one, in single file, till a few steps farther down they came to the desk of the so-called "booker," a clerk of the Railway Association, whose duty it is to ascertain the destination of each passenger, and furnish him with a printed slip, upon which this is set forth, with the number of tickets wanted, and their cost in currency. Having received this, the passenger is passed over to the railway counter, where, if he so desires, he purchases his ticket. It is left to his own option what road he will patronize, and whether he will go by the first-class or the immigrant train. This arrangement is productive of much good, as by buying his ticket here he will be only charged the just price, and get the full value for his money, if he pays with a foreign exchange. It is too often the case that passengers, buying their gested; but he did not know. Finally he retickets in outside offices, are shamefully swin-membered something about "Da," or "Dada," dled; the daily press exhibits numerous in- or "Dakota ;" and it was found to be "Farmstances of this fact. ington, Dakota County, Minnesota," a fact which was proved correct by letters which he afterward produced from his trunk. He re RAILROAD OFFICE. That it is not always easy to furnish an immigrant with the proper and correct ticket, may be conjectured from one example. A passen-ceived a ticket accordingly, and went on his ger (a Swede) desired to go to Farmington. But way rejoicing the same afternoon. as there are no less than twenty-one cities and Instances of this kind-of passengers knowvillages of that name in the United States, this ing only the name of the city to which they are address was hardly satisfactory. He was asked destined, but not those of county and Stateby the Danish clerk attached to the Railway Bu-are of frequent occurrence, and give a deal of reau what State that particular Farmington lay trouble to the railway employés. It is of the in; but this he could not tell. He had no fur-first importance to ascertain the right place, and ther address than Farmington, U. S. The probability was that it was away out West, as nearly all the Swedes are far travelers, and Illinois or Iowa were consequently sug it sometimes requires considerable skill and ex- . EXCHANGE BROKER'S OFFICE. friend comes along again with some more sovereigns to change for himself and comrades; but now he only receives $5 65 for his gold. "Ay, Sir, you have made a mistake," he says. The broker's clerk says he has not, and tries to explain. But it is no use. Less than two minutes ago he got $5 70 for his sovereign, and now he gets five cents less! That surpasses his comprehension. "No, no," says he, shaking his head incredulously; "gold is gold. This 'ere is good British money; no change in that; that stands to reason." He is offered his sovereigns back if he chooses, but lets it pass, scratching his head and saying, "Blast the ther head nor tail out of!" Often, of course, the opposite thing happens, and the price of gold is advanced in the interim between a customer's changing his coin. Then he gets the higher price for the last lot, but, in this case, never complains. way Agency is under strict control of the Com- | durned paper-money, that one can't make neimissioners of Emigration, and is held responsible to the purchaser of a ticket for any mistake that may occur. It will be readily understood that but few outside ticket offices, not so controlled, care about exercising the same care and vigilance in forwarding a passenger; they only want his purchase of a ticket and departure out of the way; if he arrives at his destination he is lucky, unless it is some such point as Chicago, or of similar importance, where mistakes can not easily take place. And if he gets a couple of hundred miles out of the way, what does it matter? he paid down his money, and is too far away and too unsophisticated to complain! All kinds of money are here exchanged, and often in considerable quantities. One of the gentlemen doing business there informed me that as much as two to three hundred sovereigns, and one to two thousand Prussian thalers, were not unfrequently changed into papermoney by one individual. While I was there a passenger changed a bag of sovereigns containing at least fifty pieces, for which he received the full value in United States promises to pay, with a memorandum of the transaction signed by the broker. It is unnecessary to say that this department also is under the strictest control and surveillance of the Commissioners, who, with a jealous eye, look out for the interest of the immigrants. Directly opposite the railway counter are the desks of the exchange brokers, which are at present occupied by four firms, each working in its own interest. A blackboard conspicuously displayed announces the current rates at which foreign and domestic coin are exchanged-a rate that is Iut a trifle below the Wall Street quotation. Whenever a change takes place in the street it is instantly reported to the brokers in the Garden, and the rate on the blackboard altered accordingly. And this, too, seems to puzzle our transatlantic friends. An Englishman comes along and changes a sovereign, for which he receives, say $5 70, according to the then present rate. A moment later gold goes down one per cent. or one and a half in Wall Street; it is instantly recorded at the Garden, and the prices are altered accordingly. Our Sovereigns and Prussian thalers form the bulk of exchange; but other coins, of nearly all countries and denominations, are also daily exchanged. American gold is very frequently brought over, and, if not changed at the Garden, often leaves the unsuspecting immigrant's pocket at par. Twenty-dollar pieces, eagles, and half-eagles are the denominations most used; but many bring over small one-dollar gold pieces, of which one out of every four or five is perforated with a hole, as if it had been |