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 . 9, 1861.] anguish; worst of all, it was to hear her frenzied calls on his name—her piteous entreaties to him for-the help he was powerless to give; it was bitter to feel that while he would have gladly bartered all the joys of earth to have been able to clasp her to his bosom, and soothe all her pangs away, he could not lighten her sufferings of one single pain. Yet nothing could have tempted him to leave the spot or close his ears to the sounds that tortured him so acutely. He devoured every groan and cry which she uttered with jealous avidity, and felt some faint comfort in thus sharing her anguish. Had he been a poet, he might perhaps have uttered such a cry as that of Mrs. Browning:

And is this like love to stand,

With no help in my hand,

When strong as death I fain would watch about thee?

My love-kiss can deny

No tear that falls beneath it;

Mine oath of love can swear thee

From no ill that comes near thee,—

And thou diest while I breathe it—

And I—I can but die.”

At last she began to sing.

Oh! that I had wings like a dove, for then

I would swiftly flee away, and be at rest;

Then would I make haste to escape far off,

Because of the stormy wind and tempest.”

Soft, sweet, and low she began, like the sigh of the west wind before summer rain, her voice gradually rising and swelling into the inspired energy of impassioned faith, with a full richness of tone, and fervour of expression, which Keefe thought must be like the music of the angels. Heavenly seemed the strain as it floated on the breath of the summer night, and no night more beautiful ever “held back her dark grey hood” to listen to “the touches of sweet harmony;” the sounds soothed Keefe, as if by magic; the fiery anguish that had been torturing him seemed suddenly softened; a divine calm seemed to fall over him; and a holy influence, gentle as the wing of that dove of which the sufferer sang, seemed to diffuse a soft and sacred peace around him; and then a faint gleam of hope, like the first streak of blue sky coming out when the storm-clouds have passed away, stole into his heart, and he felt as if the tempest had indeed gone by. Ere long the chant paused, died away, was renewed again, faltered once more, and then finally ceased. There was a dead silence. It brought back all Keefe’s fears, and he almost believed it the silence of death. The legend of the “pale, faint swan, chanting a doleful hymn to her own death,” rushed upon his memory;—had her soul passed away in that flood of celestial melody? Starting forward, he looked through the open window into the chamber. The candle had burned low, and its long unsnuffed wick threw a strange uncertain light around; the woman whom Mrs. Wendell had hired to assist her in nursing the patient, sat in a rocking-chair, fast asleep; her obtuse senses undisturbed by that unearthly music which was still vibrating in Keefe‘s ears.

Mrs. Wendell was letting down a curtain at the head of the bed, when suddenly she caught sight of Keefe’s shadow on the wall. She started at the sight, but still more when she turned towards him, and beheld his pale, anxious, haggard face. Coming close to him, she whispered:

“She‘s better, I guess, poor thing; she sang herself to sleep like a child.”

“Are you sure she is better?”

“Well, she is; the crisis is passed, and now she’ll get well.”

She would have tried to make Keefe come in, and go to bed; but he had vanished. Rushing away, he plunged into a thicket of pines, where he had gone many times during Helen’s illness to hide his agony, and now went to hide his joy.

The tide was full in his swollen heart, and flowed over in happy tears; he thanked God, and throwing himself on the grass, fell fast asleep.

day, Helen awoke with her senses perfectly restored. Her recovery might now be confidently expected, but her strength was so completely prostrated, that it was many weeks before she could leave her room. During that time a great change had taken place in Keefe.

After Mr. Lennox’s death, Mrs. Wendell found a book in his coat pocket, which Mrs. Wendell showed to Keefe. It was a small edition of “Paradise Lost,” and on opening it, Keefe found Helen’s name written in the fly-leaf. He had hitherto rather scorned reading as an effeminate pursuit, fit only for preachers and schoolmasters, but a book belonging to Helen possessed a magic charm for him, for greater than any ever attributed to those which Faust’s types produced, and which would have encircled a child’s first primer, had it been hers, with as bright a halo as a volume of Shakspeare or Dante. In reading this book he fancied he was holding asort of mystic communion with the spirit of his idol, instead of with the soul of the “sky-ensphered” poet enshrined in its pages. Keefe had his inspiration as well as Milton, and, like all high enthusiasms which raise us above self, the sacred fire so lately kindled was rapidly purifying and exalting his whole being. At first, he thought only of Helen as he read, but soon the wonderful power and beauty of the poem began to exercise their influence, and other feelings woke within him. The terrible sublimity of the two first books, the infernal world of “solid and liquid fire,” its fallen spirits, and their dark-throned leader, towering in lurid grandeur over all, powerful in intellect, mighty in will, strong against defeat, torture, despair, unconquerable in pride, tameless in energy, godlike even in his degradation, touched, too, with some softer feelings which win pity for him in every gentle heart,—all excited and improved Keefe’s daring and ardent nature; While the beautiful picture of Eden and its happy lovers, dwelling in primitive purity and bliss, its fair bowers and grottos, its clear streams and soft airs, its thornless roses and Hesperian fruits, its blissful birds, and beasts owning glad subjection to the peerless pair moulded in perfect beauty and grace, walking through the garden of God, half human, half divine—human enough to win the sympathies of mortals, divine enough to raise us to a more ethereal clime than that we inhabit—