herbs, amulets, and the lost knowledge of the ancients, which herself and partner had discovered through fasts, vigils, and planetary influence. In short, every assumption, old and new, was jumbled up in that oration. It had, moreover, the sound of a daily service, and wound up their benevolent anxiety to serve the less gifted of mankind. I noticed, however, that the lady spoke most excellent German, and was particularly accurate in historical names and dates. At the conclusion, she took Rupert's picture from my companion's hand; while the other, who had listened with apparent attention to every word, took a clasped book, not unlike a missal, from her pocket, and sat down to read by the lamp. One of us always reads prayers while the other is engaged in this work," said the dark lady. "Follow me." Trying to look as like frightened carpenters as possible, Heinrich and I followed through a door on the right, which closed seemingly of itself behind us, and we stood in a great gallery in which there was no light but the wintry moon shining through a high and narrow window. In its gleam stood something like a small Roman altar, with a funeral urn and antique vase upon it. "Now," said our conductress, "some spirits can come only before, and some after midnight. I know not to which order your brother belongs; but whatever you may hear or see, keep silence on your peril till I bid you speak." Saying this, she took the vase and poured some liquid into the urn. It had a strong odcur, but one unknown to me, though I had served two seasons in the college laboratory; and almost the same moment, with a low crackling noise, a steady blue flame shot up, which illuminated the gallery for some distance. Its length, however, seemed interminable, the further end being lost in darkness. I felt certain there was no such space within the house. Our conductress placed Rupert's picture before the flame, bowed three times to the altar, and repeated, in a loud distinct voice, some words which sounded like a mixture of Latin and some old Eastern tongue. As she ceased, we heard an indescribable sound like a moaning under the floor, and then both plainly saw coming to us out of the darkness Heinrich's cousin, Rupert, in the uniform of his regiment, and looking so like life, that I could have sworn it was he. Bold as Heinrich had been, I felt his hand, which was clasped in mine, tremble as our conductress, with a look of malicious triumph which actually appalled me, said, "Speak to your brother now in the name of the old faith." Heinrich did try to speak, but he could not; and before I could summon words, the shadow, stopping half-way from us, said, in a thin hollow voice, but I observed its lips never moved: "Why do you trouble the dead? Haven't you heard that I was shot three days ago by Captain Muller, after winning his last thaler at the hazard-table! Go home, and lead a better life than I have done!" and it vanished utterly, as the flame on the altar flickered and went out. In silence the lady opened the door, and in silence we left the parlour. Heinrich emptied his purse into the hand of the servant at the outer door-for the spirit-callers did not take money themselves-and we were past the old church before either spoke a word. "It is very strange, Hermann,” said Heinrich at last. "I wish we had not gone." I wished the same heartily. A real terror had come over us both, and we talked seriously of how the thing might have been managed, trying to convince each other that it was a cheat; neither, however, was satisfied with his own arguments; and with a dreary feeling of having done something wrong and dangerous, we parted agreeing to say nothing about it. Next morning, as I was stepping out to college, Heinrich's valet, Keiser, almost ran against me, and with a wild, frightened look, handing me an open letter, said: "Read that sir. The baron received it this morning. My master has been in a shocking fit ever since. There are two doctors with him, but he would not rest till I took the letter to you." The brief epistle made me stagger where I stood. It was from the colonel of Rupert's regiment, informing Heinrich's father, in stiff military terms, that his nephew had been assassinated on the evening of Tuesday, by Captain Muller, a desperate gamester, who coolly waited for the major, and shot him at the door of the gaming-house, in retaliation for his ill-luck at play. The letter bore a post office mark, which indicated that it had been mis-sent to Baden; thus the intelligence was delayed, and Heinrich and I were ignorant of what had happened. In our intended frolic, we had actually broken the quiet of the dead, and talked with one from beyond the grave. My first impulse, on rallying from the shock, was, I know not why, to go and see Heinrich. I found the great house in consternation; but a stiff message from the baroness, informed me that her son could not be seen, as his physician had ordered absolute quiet. By subsequent inquiries, I learned that, in a sort of delirium which succeeded the convulsive fit into which the reading of that letter had thrown him, Heinrich had uttered some wild words concerning the previous night's adventure. I think his family never fully ascertained the story; but an intimation from the Berlin police, doubtless owing to the baron's influence, made the spirit-callers withdraw quietly on following night; and I know that Heinrich's relations ever after had a special dislike to me. My class-fellow I never saw again; perhaps his mind never recovered from that shock. The baroness travelled with him through Switzerland, France and Italy, for change of familiarly by the name of Gretchen, and inquired if she knew what had become of old Petermann's nephew who used to live over the way. He went home to his friends in Prussia," said the woman coolly; "then to college; and turned out a great doctor after that in St. Petersburg. "Is he there now?" inquired the soldier. "How should I know where great people go?" and she smiled as Petermann used to do. I left the shop with my cigars, but an odd impulse drew me often to that neighbourhood scene; but those who saw him at Rome and Paris, said he walked and spoke like one in a dream. Nothing would satisfy him but retirement at the family-seat at Silesia, and there he died of a rapid consumption in the following autumn. The few fragments of the story that servants had sent abroad, were hushed up long before. It was remarked, that whoever concerned himself much about them, was sure to come somehow under the notice of the secret police. They seemed to take no note of me, but the events I have related made my college-days dull, and youth sober I pursued my studies, however, and graduated with some-and whenever I passed, the woman was sure honor. Petermann took his degree on the to look anxiously out, and then draw back, as same day; but all the while we remained at if not yet determined that she had something college, I observed he rather avoided me, and to say to me. I couldn't get over that thought once I saw him talking earnestly with Keiser and made two or three errands to the shop, at the corner of the street. The fellow had but all in vain-the woman pretended not to left his master three weeks after he brought recognise me. On the last occasion, it was that letter to me, and obtained service at the very late, and I had reached the end of the Russian Embassy. Peterman's degree was street; there wasn't a soul in it but myself, not fairly in his pocket, till he received a when, without a sound of steps that I could medical appointment in the same household; hear, a hand was laid on my shoulder, and the while I, at the recommendation of our college woman's face thrust over. "Doctor," said president, was selected from many candidates she, in a husky whisper, "I can't go to sleep as travelling physician to a noble pair grievous- this night without telling you it wasn't a ghost ly afflicted with wealth, idleness, and imagina- that you and the young baron saw that night tion. In their service, years passed, and I in the Margravestrauss, but a shadow made made the tour of Europe; residing from with a picture in the Bohemian's glasses. It one to six months at every considerable town; was I that spoke through a tube the nuns left but through all the capital cities I traced, in the floor. We knew you were coming. rather indeed, by accident than inquiry, the Take this home with you; I have kept it eleven wonderful women of the old house in Mar-years, and more," she said, thrusting a crumgravestrauss. In Rome, they had appeared in the character of miracle-workers; in Paris, they had told fortunes; at Vienna, they had been physicians; and the same occupation, together with the manufacture of extraordinary drugs, was renewed at St. Petersburg, where, however they utterly disappeared soon after the Emperor Alexander's death. No clue to their previous history could I ever obtain, but that such a pair had once been novices at the convent of St. Therese at Strasbourg, being placed there by the notable Madame Von Krudener on her travels. Tales of their marvellous powers in all the capacities mentioned, met me, and, for aught I know, are yet to be heard in those great cities; but none seemed so well proved and established as that of my own experience. I had been eight years in the service of my noble patrons, when it pleased them to take up their abode in the oldest and most dingy quarter of Strasbourg; and, returning alone from the theatre one night, my eye was caught by a tobacconist's sign. Being just then in want of the German's indispensable, I stepped in; the dame behind the counter had a face known to my memory; it was the old houseservant. She knew me, too, and we gazed at each other for a minute. There was an impulse to say something in her look, but at that moment a soldier entered, who saluted her pled paper into my hand; and before I could speak, the bang of her shop-door, closed up for the night, sounded through the street. I read the paper in my own bedroom. It was, as nearly as I can recollect, a true copy of the colonel's letter to Heinrich's father; but there was no mark of mis-sending on it, and though in the same character, it was not like ordinary writing. It was long and late before I fell asleep, but my servant awoke me early in the morning with the report that the countess was in hysterics from the sight of a fire which she saw on her return from the mayor's ball, consuming the house of a poor woman who kept a tobacco-shop; and had perished in the flames. The woman was Gretchen, and the only additional light ever thrown on that strange transaction was what a policeofficer, to whom I rendered some medical service, told me at Berlin, regarding Smessel. Some years before my return, he had died suddenly, and FrauAdelaide fell into helpless imbecility. The house of course came under police superintendence; and in an out-of-the way closet, there was found copies of innumerable letters, seals of every variety, and a curious and most complete copying-machine. The rogue is so much in the habit of cheating, that he packs the cards even when playing at Patience with himself. THE HOME OF TASTE. "Give him a home-a home of taste."-ELLIOT. My Margaret, our lowly home shall be a home of taste, A sunny spot to nestle in amid the "streeted waste;" Though round our door no cool green grass, no cheerful garden grows, The window-sill shall blossom with geraniums and the rose. Our parlour wall all up and down, for moral and delight, We'll hang with pleasant pictures-of landscapes green and bright Of portraits of the wise and good, the deathless sons of man, And, to teach us love for all that live, the good Of Burns, too, and his Highland maid, much loved, And by its side that AGED PAIR whose love no time could vary; For love up-welling, pure and deep, from youth to sober age, Shall be a light and blessedness through all our pilgrimage. A goodly book-case we will store with learning's precious gold, A hallowed temple to enshrine the mighty minds of old; With a plaster cast of Milton decked, and one of And when my work is done, my love, I'll sit and read to you. Some thrilling tale of olden time,-love true in evil day, Some lofty song of holiest bard, some gentle strel's lay, Or wondrous revelation of science deep and high, to live and die. CANVASS TOWN. I AM the youngest son of a landed proprietor in Essex, and although I have done nothing in Australia of which I need really to be ashamed, the conventional habits and old-established feelings of the mother country are a fictitious name with the following brief narstill strong enough in me to cause me to give rative. I will, therefore, call myself Westbrook. As I write I am in the midst of dilemma and distress, so what I have to say must necessarily be fragmentary. I had a University education, and was senior optime; but before I had determined on my future course of life, it was settled for me by my falling desperately in love with the daughter of a baronet in our neighborhood. I married her. We ran away; and, as she was the youngest daughter, and I the youngest son, our parents found our conduct a good reason for cutting us both off with the smallest possible pittance. But we loved, and were happy, and spent nearly every guinea of our meagre inheritance in a prolonged wedding tour. After this I went to work in earnest; and, in the course of a few years, I got the position of managing clerk in a mercantile house in Liverpool, with a salary of three hundred and fifty pounds a year, and the promise of a rise of fifty pounds every year should have been taken into the firm as a during the next five years; after which I junior partner. You will easily believe what I am about to say, simply because so many others have commin-mitted precisely the same kind of folly, and left a good reality for a chance; and, in a lot· tery sixteen thousand miles off. The goldfever of Port Philip broke out in Liverpool, and I fell a victim to it. I resigned my post, with all its prospects-certainties, I may say, -and set sail for Australia Felix. What felicity!-but I need not anticipate, as I shall make a short cut to the consequences. And we'll not forget your music, love, the songs so sad and sweet, You sang to me with a tearful eye in your father's calm retreat; That simple music of the heart, we'll sing it o'er again, And link our days together still with its enchanting chain. Will not our life be happy, love? Oh yes, for we will seek The spirit of the Spotless One-the beautiful, the meek All pure desires and high resolves, all lofty thoughts and true, And that which duty bids be done, our ready hands shall do. Will not our life be happy, love? Oh yes, for we will bow Together at the throne of Him "from whom all blessings flow," And deep in his eternity-beyond the change of time And deep within our inmost soul, possess a peace sublime. I invested one hundred pounds in a speculation in hams; one hundred pounds in boots and shoes; and two hundred pounds in agricultural and mining tools, in which I felt I with the passage-money, and outfit, &c., of could not be wrong. After paying all my debts myself, my wife, and our three children, as cabin passengers, I found myself in possession of three hundred and fifteen pounds, a sum in addition to my ventures, which I believed to be ample, far more than necessary for "a start" in the golden region of Australia. should be said of the bad victualling, ventilaI pass over the voyage. A thousand things tion, and general management of the ship, but I must leave them to others. We arrived in Hobson's Bay, Port Philip, on a hot summer's day, in November, 1852. Hearing from the pilot that lodgings were very difficult to be procured in the town, I resolved to be first of all our passengers in the The man was drunk and offensive; the woman field; and accordingly took my wife and an unseemly slave, and insolent. The child children ashore in the first boat that came cried all night. Besides this, sleep was imposalongside. The boatman charged most ex-sible for the fleas, bugs, musquitoes, and a tortionately, and then the rascal put us all ashore at William's Town, which we naturally supposed to be Melbourne. On discovering our mistake, we had again to induce another boatman to consent to rob us by an exorbitant charge for putting us on board the steamboat for Melbourne. After several arbitrary delays alongside vessels, we reached Melbourne, were landed on a wharf which was overwhelmed with a confusion of men and things and carts and horses, and began our wanderings over the town in search of lodgings. All were crowded, expensive, and the great majority filthy and offensive to the last degree. I could have got into one of the first-class boarding houses; but they would not receive a lady, nor children. We were nearly exhausted. Luckily we had brought none of our things ashore but two night-bags., or we must have thrown them away. lively sort of beetle, continually running over our hands and necks, and trying to get down the back. In the morning every part of every one of us was covered with large red swellings, or small red punctures. Not one inch of us had been spared. Our faces, as we looked at each other, were painful to behold. As for me, I could scarcely lift my eylids, so swollen with bites upon bites. My wife once lovely, and far from bad looking even after all our harassing, was about the most unsightly woman I had ever seen; my eldest daughter, eight years of age, was a speckled blight; my second girl was a squinting ideal; our poor little boy, a moon calf. None of us knew our own hands. My wife's under lip was a tomato. I could have cried like a child, with a mixture of grief, rage, and self-reproach. She bore it admirably. that there were hundreds much worse,) and, meeting one of the passengers who came out had pitched his tent on the South Yarra enwith us in the same ship, he told us that he I paid four shillings each for our tea, four The sun now sank, and I began to grow and four shillings each for our breakfast; at shillings each for our bed-floor inclusiveuneasy, as I heard all sorts of accounts of the which there was plenty of fried beef-steak, but streets in Melbourne at night. But, while I was trying to console myself with the idea so tough that we could not eat a morsel. We that we had at least a good hour's more day-hurried out of this respectable den (I admit light before us, the sky rapidly darkened, and in ten minutes more the evening became night. Being now in despair, we entered a lodging house-then another, then another, and so on, offering at last to sleep anywhere if they would take us in. At last one of them consented. It was by no means one of the lowest lodging-houses, as I afterwards learnt, but it was bad enough for the worst; excepting only that our throats were not in danger of being cut. It was only short of that. and that he had slept very comfortably after campment among a great number of tents; the confinement of a cabin on so long a voyage. He said the encampment was called Canvass Town. Not knowing where to leave my wife and children, I took them all on board again, to It was shocking. The bedroom we were accomplish which occupied the whole morning, shown into was filthy, very small, and with a with vexatious delays, and no one able, or very little window which had not been opened choosing to take the least trouble to give the to admit fresh air for a week at least. The least information-to say nothing of the reblankets were hideously dirty, displaying os-newed extortions. We packed up everything. tentatiously large dark blotches of grease, and I was anxious to get my goods out of the hold, net-works of dirty splashes, like foul mockeries so as to dispose of the "speculation." After of a map of the moon. There were two beds of this description; the room would not have held a third. In this place we had some tea, and bread and butter, with fried meat-such stuff! Just as we were about to take possess ion of our wretched beds, in walked a man, with his wife carrying a child, followed by the landlady, who announced them as the occupants of the other bed! I began a vigorous remonstrance, but was instantly stopped by the reminder, that we had begged to be taken in, and had agreed to anything; and if we did not like it we might instantly depart. Our heads fell on our breasts in sick submission. The night we passed defies description; partly because so much of it is unfit to relate. several days the hams were got up on deck. Some of them had been spoiled by the heat of the tropics, and had to be thrown overboard; some had been damaged by the bilge water in the hold, or by the seas we had shipped in rounding the Cape; some had been gnawed in holes by the rats, and a good many had been stolen. The bale of boots and shoes next appeared, all grey and green with mouldiness, but recoverable I was told. Being unable to wait for the agricultural and mining tools, which had been stowed at the bottom of the hold, we left the ship in a boat for Liardet's Beach; having ascertained that there was a small encampment there, and that this was the readiest way to get to Canvass Town. We heard that drays were always waiting on the beach, or close at hand, to take passengers' We agreed that I should instantly set off to luggage wherever they wished. Melbourne, and lodge it in one of the banks. We accordingly engaged a boat to take our-I started accordingly. Many new arrivals, selves and our baggage. The boatman agreed draymen, sailors and horsemen were going to do it for three pounds, the distance being the same way; so I had plenty of company, barely a mile and a half; but before we had and the distance was only two miles. I been ten minutes in the boat, he and his mate passed Canvass Town on the way. There discovered that we had so many more pack- were no tents between this and the large ages, than they had expected, that he bridge over the Yarra, leading direct into the demanded five pounds. Iresisted, and tender- town. I walked briskly forward. At this ed him the three pounds, which he took dog- juncture three men came up to me; and with gedly. They landed us on the beach, close to horrible imprecations, demanded my money. the sea, where they bundled out all our things. I was utterly confounded. The bridge was I inquired if the tide was coming in? The not two hundred yards off, with people passing owner of the boat said he thought it was. over it! The next moment I was knocked They refused to remove my baggage any down from behind-tumbled over a bank into higher up. They said they done all they the dust-and rolled in it, till neary suffocated. had agreed for. I saw no carts, nor drays, on When I recovered myself, a sailor-boy and a the beach. There were several near the new arrival were helping me to rise. I was wooden boat-pier, but when I ran off to bleeding from a wound in the back of my them I found they were all engaged. The head. Every bank-note and every sovereign beat had pushed off, and I had to call the I had was gone. A dray on its way to the men back, and offer to pay them for helping beach, took me back to the tent. My wife me to move our goods. They stipulated for dressed my head, for no surgeon could be for three pounds more to remove everything found. We heard in the afternoon that the high up, quite out of reach of the tide. There police were galloping after the robbers; or was nothing for it, so I agreed, and it was done. rather galloping about to inquire which way I told them them they had made a good day's they made off. work out of me. The principal man said, "Nonsense-this is nothing! I shall soon be away from this. Why should I waste my time here, while there's a fortune a-staring me in the face, up at the Diggings? Good day's work be hanged!" The people who owned the tent were obliged to strike it before the evening; and as my wife feared I could not safely be moved for a day or two, she bought a tarpaulin for six pairs of boots, and fastened it up between two trees. The weather, however, suddenly Here we remained looking in vain for a dray. became so very cold, and the wind and dust Whenever one drove up in front of the public-were so distressing, that we agreed next day house near the wooden pier, I ran off to it; but found it was engaged. The sun went down. It was dark soon afterwards and there we were, sitting forlorn upon our baggage with every prospect of passing the night there. Under pretence of a last look for a dray, I walked to some distance with my pistols; which I now loaded in case of our being attacked by maurauders. to go into a room in a cottage just finished, which one of the bricklayers proposed to us. We were to pay three of the best of the hams per week; and for two pair of shoes a man agreed to carry our baggage there. The distance turned out to be about eighty yards. Our baggage being got in, it was discovered that the cottage had only one room. Other luggage was then brought in, belonging to the While we were thus sitting, two men, and bricklayer and his wife, and deposited on the a young woman approached us carrying bun- floor. Before night, more baggage came in, dles. They were passengers by another ship, and with it a Higlander and his family! and had been put ashore like ourselves, and Three married people, and seven children left to right themselves as they could. They were thus arranged to sleep in the same small had got a small tent, which they proposed to room. My wife and I immediately insisted on set up at once, in a rough style, and good- our baggage being taken back to the trees; naturedly offered to allow us to creep under or, at any rate, placed outside; but a shower it. The tent was hung up between two trees, of rain now fell, which presently increased to with our baggage in front; and, beyond this, a deluge, and we were compelled to subthe beach and the sea. We unpacked a part of our bedding-partook thankfully of some very dirty cold plum-pudding-and, being thoroughly fatigued, we all slept soundly till day-light. I had intended to lie awake all night, as a watch; but I dropped off, and never once awoke. In the morning I confessed to my wife that! I had not sent my money to the bank, as she had supposed, but that I had it all about me. mit to our fate. The Highlander and his wife never said a word in support of my objections, that I know of; for what they did say they spoke in Gaelic. The bricklayer smoked an hour before he went to sleep. He said these things were nothing when you were used to them, with other vulgar remarks. My wife went out soon after sunrise; and, by seven o'clock, brought a man with a dray to the door, and had everything placed in it, |