severed that rose from the stalk, bedewed its delicate petals with tears, and pressed them apart with kisses, how did he look into the still, buried heart of his Mary, as he had never looked into it when it throbbed and glowed for him. How did her life of gentle forbearance, of humility, patience, and loving kindness, rise up before him with sweet reproachfulness! How she ever stood afar off as he last beheld her with mournful eyes looking farewell through tears, and that hand pressed close against her heart!

From that hour, the sacred rose, with those dear words wrapped around it, enclosed in a small locket, has been worn as the most hallowed of mementos near the bereaved and softened heart of Henry Elliot. Around his darkened paths the love of his motherless child plays like tender starlight, and a still higher and diviner love hath come to his wounded spirit "with healing in its wings." And yet the past haunts him, and must ever haunt him with its sweet and mournful visions; and naught but the sound of a voice long passed from earth can still his own soul's reproachful voices, naught but a meeting in Heaven's full sunlight, may comfort him for that parting under a cloud.

RHYME OF THE ANCIENT TROUBADOUR.

A LEGEND

BALLADIZED.

GEORGE P. MORRIS.

"Come, list to a lay of the olden time,"
A troubadour sung on a moonlit stream:
"The scene is laid in a foreign clime,

A century back, and love is the theme."
Love was the theme of the troubadour's rhyme,
Of lady and lord of the olden time.

"At an iron-barred turret a lady fair,

Knelt at the close of the vesper chime;

Her beads she number'd in silent prayer,

For one far away, whom to love was her crime.
Love," sung the troubadour, "love was a crime,
When fathers were stern, in the olden time.

"The warder had spurned from the castle gate,
The minstrel who wooed her in flowing rhyme-

He came back from battle in regal estate

The bard was a prince of the olden time.

Love," sung the troubadour," listened to rhyme,
And welcomed the bards of the olden time.

"The prince in disguise had the lady sought

To chapel they hied in their rosy prime: Thus worth won a jewel that wealth never bought, A fair lady's heart of the olden time.

The moral," the troubadour sung, "of my rhyme, Was well understood in the olden time."

MY SWEDISH FRIEND.

A LIFE PICTURE.

MRS. SARAH JOSEPHA HALE.

"EVERY life would be a volume of instruction, could we open and read the leaves of the heart," says a distinguished German writer.

We shall not attempt this heart history of the lady we are about to sketch; it would be thought a romance. Our aim is to give a simple and true narrative of the most important events and circumstances in the life of a dear friend. As a preface to show our labor is not wasted on an undeserving object, we will say here, that this lady was richly gifted by nature with beauty, wit and genius: she had also a highly cultivated mind and refined taste, joined with the most winning manners. And then, as the crown of all these perfections, she sustained herself, through many vicissitudes and cares and sorrows, with the dignity of a true woman and the faith of a fervent christian.

Would that my pen could portray her truly.

Marie de Verdier was a native of Sweden, born in

Malmö, a town of considerable importance and nearly opposite Copenhagen.

Her father-a Captain of Hussars in the Swedish service—was of French descent, and prided himself on being considered one of the most accomplished gentlemen among the officers; her mother was connected by birth or marriage with several noble families, and both parents cherished high pretensions and aristocratic prejudices.

Marie was their second child, (she had an elder sister Louise) and at an early age gave decided indications of genius. She was of a gay disposition and full of wild fancies, with the tendency a strong, imaginative mind usually shows to gain knowledge or enjoy excitement from every event. Easily governed through her affections or by appeals to her reason, she yet never could be effectually drilled into that blind, unquestioning belief in the wisdom of all her teachers enjoined, which is so essential to constitute a good subject under despotic rule. In short, she seemed born a republican.

Madame de Verdier was a devoted observer of all forms in religion and in etiquette. She sedulously instructed her children in these forms, never doubting but the national established Church would secure their salvation hereafter; while she was equally careful to give them the manners and accomplishments that confer distinction in this life. But she found it very difficult to regulate the mind and movements of Marie, by the standard of ceremony and inanity then required for