her nose, which was saddled with a pair of ironbound spectacles. But no sooner had she begun to puzzle over it, than she burst into a chuckling laugh, holding both her hands against her sides. "You can't make a fool of the old woman!" cried she. "This is your own handwriting, Mr. Peter! the same as in the letter you sent me from Mexico." "There is certainly a considerable resemblance," said Peter, again examining the parchment. "But you know yourself, Tabby, that this closet must have been plastered up before you came to the house, or I came into the world. No, this is old Peter Goldthwaite's writing; these columns of pounds, shillings, and pence are his figures, denoting the amount of the treasure; and this at the bottom is, doubtless, a reference to the place of concealment. But the ink has either faded or peeled off, so that it is absolutely illegible. What a pity!" For the present, Peter felt more inclined to ponder on this discovery than to resume his labours. After Tabitha had gone down-stairs, he stood poring over the parchment at one of the front windows, which was so obscured with dust that the sun could barely throw an uncertain shadow of the casement across the floor. Peter forced it open and looked out upon the great street of the town, while the sun looked in at his old house. The air, though mild, and even warm, thrilled Peter as with a dash of water. It was the first day of the January thaw. Never had Peter beheld a livelier scene: the bright sun; the flashing water-drops; the gleaming snow; the cheerful multitude; the variety of rapid vehicles; and the jingle-jangle of merry bells, which made the heart dance to their music. Nothing dismal was to be seen except that peaked picce of antiquity, Peter Goldthwaite's house, which might well look sad externally, since such a terrible consumption was preying on its inside. And Peter's gaunt figure, half visible in the projecting second story, was worthy of his house. It is one great advantage of a gregarious mode of life, that each person rectifies his mind by other minds, and squares his conduct to that of his neighbours, so as seldom to be lost in eccentricity. Peter Goldthwaite had exposed himself to this influence, by merely looking out of the window. For a while he doubted whether there were any hidden chest of gold, and, in that case, whether it was so exceedingly wise to tear the house down, only to be convinced of its non-existence. old house, and also with some that are not. What seemed most to the purpose was a rusty key, which had been thrust into a chink of the wall, with a wooden label appended to the handle, bearing the initials P. G. Another singular discovery was that of a bottle of wine, walled up in an old oven. A tradition ran in the family that Peter's grandfather, a jovial officer in the old French war, had set aside many dozens of the precious liquor, for the benefit of topers then unborn. Peter needed no cordial to sustain his hopes, and therefore kept the wine to gladden his success. Many halfpence did he pick up, that had been lost through the cracks of the floor, and some few Spanish coins, and the half of a broken sixpence, which had doubtless been a love-token. There was likewise a silver coronation medal of George the Third. But old Peter Goldthwaite's strong box fled from one dark corner to another, or otherwise eluded the second Peter's clutches, till, should he seek much further, he must burrow into the earth. We will not follow him in his triumphant progress, step by step. Suffice it that Peter worked like a steam-engine, and finished, in that one winter, the job, which all the former inhabitants of the house, with time and the elements to aid them, had only half done in a century. Except the kitchen, every room and chamber was now gutted. The house was nothing but a shell-the apparition of a house-as unreal as the painted edifices of a theatre. It was like the perfect rind of a great cheese, in which a mouse had dwelt and nibbled, till it was a cheese no more. And Peter was the mouse. What Peter had torn down, Tabitha had burnt up; for she wisely considered that, without a house, they should need no wood to warm it; and therefore economy was nonsense. Thus the whole house might be said to have dissolved in smoke, and flown up among the clouds, through the great black flue of the kitchen chimney. It was an admirable parallel to the feat of the man who jumped down his own throat. On the night between the last day of winter and the first of spring, every chink and cranny had been ransacked, except within the precincts of the kitchen. This fated evening was an ugly one. A snow-storm had set in some hours before, and was still driven and tossed about the atmosphere by a real hurricane, which fought against the house, as if the prince of the air in person were putting the final stroke to Peter's labours. The frame. work being so much weakened, and the inward props removed, it would have been no marvel if, in some stronger wrestle of the blast, the rotten walls of the edifice, and all the peaked roofs, had come crashing down upon the owner's head. He, however, was careless of the peril, but as wild and PETER GOLDTHWAITE'S TREASURE. restless as the night itself, or as the flame that quivered up the chimney, at each roar of the tempestuous wind. "The wine, Tabitha!" he cried. "My grandfather's rich old wine! We will drink it now!" Tabitha arose from her smoke-blackened bench in the chimney-corner, and placed the bottle before Peter, close beside the old brass lamp, which had likewise been the prize of his researches. Peter held it before his eyes, and looking through the liquid medium, beheld the kitchen illuminated with a golden glory, which also enveloped Tabitha, and gilded her silver hair, and converted her mean garments into robes of queenly splendour. It reminded him of his golden dream. 183 Brown's last visit, and Peter's crazed and haggard aspect. 66 'Poor fellow!" thought Mr. John Brown. "Poor, crack-brained Peter Goldthwaite ! For old acquaintance' sake, I ought to have taken care that he was comfortable this rough winter." These feelings grew so powerful, that, in spite of the inclement weather, he resolved to visit Peter Goldthwaite immediately. The strength of the impulse was really singular. Every shriek of the blast seemed a summons, or would have seemed so, had Mr. Brown been accustomed to hear the echoes of his own fancy in the wind. Much amazed at such active benevolence, he huddled himself in his cloak, muffled his throat "Mr. Peter," remarked Tabitha, "must the wine and ears in comforters and handkerchiefs, and, be drunk before the money is found?" "The money is found!" exclaimed Peter, with a sort of fierceness. "The chest is within my reach. I will not sleep till I have turned this key in the rusty lock. But, first of all, let us drink!" thus fortified, bade defiance to the tempest. Mr. Brown contrived to burrow a passage through the snow-drift, and, with his head bent against the storm, floundered onward to Peter's door. There was such a creaking, and groanhe|ing, and rattling, and such an ominous shaking throughout the crazy edifice, that the loudest rap would have been inaudible to those within. He therefore entered without ceremony, and groped his way to the kitchen. There being no corkscrew in the house, smote the neck of the bottle with old Peter Goldthwaite's rusty key, and decapitated the sealed cork at a single blow. He then filled two little china tea-cups, which Tabitha had brought from the cupboard. So clear and brilliant was this aged wine, that it shone within the cups, and rendered the sprig of scarlet flowers at the bottom of each more distinctly visible than when there had been no wine there. Its rich and delicate perfume wasted itself round the kitchen. "Drink, Tabitha!" cried Peter. "Blessings on the honest old fellow who set aside this good liquor for you and me! And here's to Peter Goldthwaite's memory!" "And good cause have we to remember him," quoth Tabitha, as she drank. How many years, and through what changes of fortune and various calamity had that bottle hoarded up its effervescent joy, to be quaffed at last by two such boon companions! A portion of the happiness of a former age had been kept for them, and was now set free, in a crowd of rejoicing visions, to sport amid the storm and desolation of the present time. Until they have finished the bottle, we must turn our eyes elsewhere. It so chanced that, on this stormy night, Mr. John Brown found himself ill at ease, in his wire-cushioned arm-chair, by the glowing grate of anthracite which heated his handsome parlour. He was naturally a good sort of man, and kind and pitiful whenever the misfortunes of others happened to reach his heart through the padded vest of his own prosperity. This evening he had thought much about his old partner, Peter Goldthwaite, his strange vagaries, and continual ill luck, the poverty of his dwelling at Mr. His intrusion, even there, was unnoticed. Peter and Tabitha stood with their backs to the door, stooping over a large chest, which, apparently, they had just dragged from a cavity, or concealed closet, on the left side of the chimney. By the lamp in the old woman's hand, Mr. Brown saw that the chest was barred and clamped with iron, strengthened with iron plates, and studded with iron nails, so as to be a fit receptacle in which the wealth of one century might be hoarded up for the wants of another. Peter Goldthwaite was inserting a key into the lock. "Oh, Tabitha!" cried he, with tremulous rapture, "how shall I endure the effulgence? The gold!-the bright, bright, gold! Methinks I can remember my last glance at it, just as the iron-plated lid fell down. And ever since, being seventy years, it has been blazing in secret, and gathering its splendour against this glorious moment! It will flash upon us like the noon-day sun!" "Then shade your eyes, Mr. Peter!" said Tabitha, with somewhat less patience than usual. "But, for mercy's sake, do turn the key!" she continued. And, with a strong effort of both hands, Peter did force the rusty key through the intricacies of the rusty lock. Mr. Brown, in the meantime, had drawn near, and thrust his eager visage between those of the other two, at the instant that Peter threw up the lid. No sudden blaze illuminated the kitchen. "What's here?" exclaimed Tabitha, adjusting her spectacles, and holding the lamp over the open chest. "Old Peter Goldthwaite's hoard of old rags." "Pretty much so, Tabby," said Mr. Brown, lifting a handful of the treasure. Oh, what a ghost of dead and buried wealth had Peter Goldthwaite raised, to scare himself out of his scanty wits withal! Here was the semblance of an incalculable sum, enough to purchase the whole town, and build every street anew, but which, vast as it was, no sane man would have given a solid sixpence for. What then, in sober earnest, were the delusive treasures of the chest? Why, here were old provincial bills of credit, and treasury notes, and bills of land banks, and all other bubbles of the sort, from the first issue, above a century and a half ago, down nearly to the Revolution. Bills of a thousand pounds were intermixed with parchment pennies, and worth no more than they. "And this, then, is old Peter Goldthwaite's treasure!" said John Brown. "Your namesake, Peter, was something like yourself; and, when the provincial currency had depreciated fifty or seventy-five per cent., he bought it up, in expectation of a rise. I have heard my grandfather say, that old Peter gave his father a mortgage of this very house and land, to raise MY AUNT. [OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. Y aunt! my dear unmarried aunt! I know it hurts her, though she looks My aunt! my poor deluded aunt! Why will she train that winter curl Her father-grandpapa! forgive 'Twas in her thirteenth June- See Page 30, Vol. I.] 'They braced my aunt against a board, They pinch'd her feet, they singed her hair, So when my precious aunt was done, Alas! nor chariot, nor barouche, Tore from the trembling father's arms And Heaven had spared to me To sit the midst of Trinal Unity, He laid aside; and, here with us to be, Forsook the courts of everlasting day, She, crown'd with olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphere, His ready harbinger, With turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing; And, waving wide her myrtle wand, She strikes an universal peace through sea and land. No war, or battle's sound, Was heard the world around: The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked chariot stood Unstain'd with hostile blood; The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye, And chose with us a darksome house of mortal As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by. clay. Say, heavenly Muse, shall not thy sacred vein Hast thou no verse, no hymn, or solemn strain, See, how from far, upon the eastern road, Have thou the honour first thy Lord to greet, THE HYMN. It was the winter wild, While the heaven-born Child All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to Him, Had doff'd her gaudy trim, With her great Master so to sympathise: It was no season then for her To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour. Only with speeches fair She wooes the gentle air To hide her guilty front with innocent snow; And on her naked shame, Pollute with sinful blame, The saintly veil of maiden white to throw; Confounded, that her Maker's eyes Should look so near upon her foul deformities. But He, her fears to cease, But peaceful was the night, Wherein the Prince of Light His reign of peace upon the earth began: Whispering new joys to the mild ocean, wave. The stars, with deep amaze, Bending one way their precious influence; For all the morning light, Or Lucifer that often warn'd them thence; But in their glimmering orbs did glow, Until the Lord Himself bespake, and bid them go. And, though the shady gloom Had given day her room, The sun himself withheld his wonted speed, And hid his head for shame, As his inferior flame The new-enlighten'd world no more should need: He saw a greater Sun appear Than his bright throne, or burning axletree, could bear. The shepherds on the lawn, Or e'er the point of dawn, Sat simply chatting in a rustic row; Full little thought they then, That the mighty Pan Was kindly come to live with them below; Perhaps their loves, or else their sheep, Was all that did their silly thoughts so busy keep. When such music sweet Their hearts and ears did greet, |