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"Behind its bars the press no more
Is doomed to bow and cringe;
The gate of old Intolerance
Swings on its rusty hinge.

"And Art, no longer forced to serve
At Superstition's shrine,
Brings forth a new-born retinue
To swell her royal line.
"Religion, rising from the dark,

Her chains to earth has hurled,
And simple Truth and Liberty
Untrammeled walk the world. ·

"Viva! Viva! Italia!

Her Union spreads abroad
The invincible light of Freedom
In the infallible light of God!"

The following extract is from a letter written to a cherished friend in Philadelphia, H. S. T. The letter has been published entire in the pages of the Evening Bulletin since the death of Mr. Read. This shows the man.

"I want to tell you now and solemnly that a deep sense of my duty to my God, as well as to my fellow-man, has gradually been descending upon me. And it

is to me a source of infinite pleasure that I can look back upon all the poetry I have ever written, and find it contains no line breathing a doubt upon the blessed Trinity and the great redemption of man.

When I have written my verses, I have been alone with my own soul and with God, and not only dared not lie, but the inspiration of the truth was to me so beautiful that no unworthy thought ever dared obtrude itself upon the page. This was entirely owing to the goodness of God, who saw what was to be, and saved me from subsequent mortification and regret."

Said he to one who watched his dying bed, "Am I in the garden now?" Perhaps he already caught visions of that fairer land to which he was so rapidly hastening, and saw the "green pastures beside the still waters," inviting him to rest from his labors. Cleared from the film of death, his eyes might, even at that moment, have looked upon the neverfading flowers of Paradise!

In death-call it not death, but an entrance into a higher life-his features wore that calm repose foreshadowed in his own beautiful lines:

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THE MYSTERY OF AN OLD MANOR HALL.

BY MRS. JULIA M'NAIR WRIGHT.

F hobbies are horses, Prudence Au- | her friends, this damsel in outward

triennes. Her hobby was collecting, and she spent all her time and nearly all her income in giving this beloved steed free rein in every part of the country. Hobby-riding is held by Dr. John Brown to be quite as healthful as any other kind of horsemanship; and in indulging in it, Prudence had become as strong and beautiful a maiden as one might wish to see.

Regarding benevolently the feelings of

fashionable, but her soul was an antique. Prudence was the Nile-watching Sphinx, reappearing after thousands of years, clad in flesh instead of stone; wearing overskirts and ruffles, and dwelling in the domains of Uncle Sam, instead of Rameses.

We would like to show how her favorite mania developed in her early days in the collection of broken crockery, acorns, pebbles, scraps, and trash of all sorts, but

we forbear, remembering that in this she was by no means different from other juveniles.

Left an orphan at seventeen, having plenty of pocket-money, and liberty for the most part to do as she pleased, Prudence Aubrey set up first as an humble disciple of William Beckford, and collected everything that came in her way. A visitor of Beckford said of Fonthill Abbey that the variety of its curiosities was infinite, containing something in everybody's favorite line; so did this young woman's assortment in an humble way.

We opine that if our dear Prudence had been acquainted with that mysterious region the kitchen, she would have set up in her museum a department for singular sorts of pots and saucepans; however, a kitchen was to her a terra incognita.

Aubrey's prizes in bric a brac bore the
most remote likeness to that famous col-
lection of John Allen of New York; but
we aver that she had put into it as much
"industry, care and enthusiasm"
ever that venerable citizen.

And here we are forced to the mournful confession that the grand passion of our heroine sometimes verged toward kleptomania, and if she could not get her valuables by fair manoeuvres, she did not hesitate long about using foul ones, believing that the end justified the means.

Prudence was now visiting in Philadelphia, at the house of her brother-in-law, John Pils, (who, we are happy to state, was most appropriately a doctor.)

To express wrath in set terms to this maiden, was simply impossible; she was so bright-eyed, so merry, so deliciously unconscious of ever offending.

"I suppose," said Doctor Pils to Prudence, "that while you are here I must take you to see the Manor Hall; Anna, my wife, tells me that it will just suit you."

"I wonder if I could get any relics," said Prudence, pursuing her especial idea.

It was the theory of John, as it was of the Apostle Paul, that young women should marry, guide the house, and so forth; and he was nourishing some inBeginning her omnium gatherum, dignation against Prudence that she rePrudence had for a while given her attained so long her independent estate. tention to beetles, and had gained great cards covered with shining scarabæi, neatly glued into position; she had yielded to the pursuit of butterflies, and her reward was a huge case, looking as if it held a shattered rainbow. She doted on varieties of wood, and secured them like Walter Scott, a twig here, and a twig there. She haunted bookstalls of a grimy and dilapidated character, and purchased volumes that looked as if they might be full of all manner of contagious diseases. Even human bones did not come amiss to this monomaniac; and in short, her room became such a collection of horrors, that the maids connected frightful legends with it, and could not be persuaded to spend sufficient time there to put it thoroughly in order; therefore, her only resource was, when dust accumulated, to move with all her museum to some recently renovated spot. Pursuing still at twenty-five her chosen business of collecting, Prudence had found her best winded hobby, and devoted herself rather to antiquities than to natural sciences. Her specimens must now be as ancient as possible, and have a history of some sort, which she generally set forth in their label.

We would by no means hint that Miss

"I wish you could give up your passion for relics, Prudence; I am sure you have enough of them to satisfy any reasonable person. I would rather see you painting in water-colors, or making tatting!"

"Why did you not say, doing embroidery? Then you would have left me no loophole of escape; for water-color painting and embroidery are both ancient arts, practised by the Egyptians, and I do dote on antiquity! As for tatting, it is a modern invention, and most absurd. I am convinced that my mission on earth is to be a collector. As to the Manor Hall, what is to be seen there? How old is it? Are there any ghosts belonging to it?"

"It is two hundred years old, and there are plenty of ghost stories; every old house has them, airy nothings."

"Charming. What else?" "Why, Nollet, the Indian chief, was buried there. Some villain has broken open his grave."

"Splendid! Are there any bones lying about, doctor?”

"Bones?" Would you carry off some if there were?"

"Surely. You have no idea of the strength of my ruling proclivity. There is a shop on Eighth street which I never pass without breaking the tenth commandment, and only the window glass prevents my breaking the eighth."

"You are far gone indeed. Unless you take care you will end your days in a lunatic asylum. You ought to marry, Prudence; and, speaking of this, your sister tells me that you have kept a gentleman, Mr. Walford, waiting for three months for your reply to an offer of marriage. Now, Prudence, is that a proper, a kind, or a respectful way, to treat any

man?"

"What does he bother me for, then," said Prudence, with an accession of pink in her round cheek. "Don't he know perfectly well that my whole soul is set on getting together a fine museum, and that I am so busy looking up curiosities that I cannot stop to determine whether I like him or not?"

"No; there is not a man living who would appreciate such a ridiculous state of mind.'

"Tom, does," said Prudence; "he is as much of an antiquarian as I am."

Doctor Pils laughed aloud at this antiquarian, wearing little boots of the legitimate "pebbled goat," and whose white arms were set off with flowing sleeves, delicate Honiton, and gold bracelets.

"I don't mind if I tell you how I became acquainted with Tom Walford," said Prudence; "it was quite in my line, in fact an affair of a skeleton, old bones, and all that."

"Really, I am honored by your confidence," said Doctor Pils, settling himself to hear something which promised to be more congenial than the general line of Miss Prudence's observations.

"A year ago," began Miss Aubrey,

carefully studying the pattern of her lace, "I was visiting in a part of Ohio where there are mounds; real mysterious, unexplainable mounds. I went to spend the night with a friend, and met at her her house an old gentleman, who, singularly enough, discerned my taste for antiquities."

"Prudence," cried the doctor, "it is a lovely afternoon, let us walk over to the Manor Hall, while you are telling me this exceedingly interesting story."

"How do you know that it is interesting until you hear it?" demanded Prudence, tying on her hat.

"All love tales are so-even the loves of antiquarians," replied the doctor, and, as they set out on their walk, he added, "I see nothing singular in that old gentleman's discovering your pet idiosyncrasy; you are forever making it known; you no sooner open your lips than out comes something to indicate this-this remarkable mental bias."

"However that may be," continued Prudence, amiably, "this old gentleman informed me that he could tell me where to find a great pleasure. An Indian mound had been opened on an adjacent farm, and he understood that relics had been discovered in it. The excavations had been made the preceding day, as I understood, by an elderly man, living with the land owner, who was happy enough to have mounds in his possession. The old gentleman further acquainted me with various singular facts concerning mounds. He said to open one is merely a respectable way of committing suicide; the Vandal who thus disturbs the monuments of the past immediately dying. My hostess combatted this theory by mentioning people who had opened mounds and lived; but the old gentleman made it plain that those were exceptions and not the rule. He also told me of axe heads, bits of metal, isinglass, spear points, and shells, found in these tumuli; and stated that a large one had been opened in Marietta, Ohio, in the centre of which was a huge lump of clay, lying as the hub of a wheel, from which burial places diverged like so many spokes; this lump of clay being broken,

was found tenanted by a living toad, which howled its dissatisfaction at being disturbed in the sleep of centuries." "Howled?" cried Doctor Pils. toad howl?"

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'My friend objected, as you do, to the expression; but the deponent remarked that, 'if it didn't howl, it breathed,' and he had it in his hand. We see, then, doctor, that a toad in a mound is the true antitype of the famous Sleeping Beauty, so much be-sung and be-written by poets and fabulists. Our informant told us, furthermore, that his brother became owner of this toad, for which he would not have taken five hundred dollars; my hostess, like yourself, lacked antiquarian instinct, and protested that she would not give five dollars for the oldest toad that ever existed. This remarkable sample of Batrachia was stolen from its proud possessor."

"A great pity," said the doctor, drily. "I thought so," returned Prudence, frankly. "I would have liked the opportunity of stealing it for myself. Of course I was anxious to see the mound, and, as no one at my friend's shared my curiosity, I went alone next day to the place indicated. The mound was some twenty-odd feet long and high, by fifteen wide. There was a large stump on the summit of it. On the west of this stump the explorer had begun his trench, making it some eighteen inches wide, and carrying it down the side of the knoll. He had struck upon a stone arch, and from thence widened his trench to three feet, so that one could walk in it easily; he had then removed part of this ancient mason work and laid bare a cavity, in which some unknown sachem had been, like the toad, asleep for some hundreds

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to this queer old tomb. I took my in my hand, gathered my dress close, and went down into the dwelling of the dead. I had hoped to see a ghost, the spirit of the defunct chief, bewailing his desecrated ashes. Instead of this I found a stal wart young man, comfortably seated on the spot whence he had removed the skull. I regret to say that this explorer was solacing himself then and there with bread and cheese.

He made me welcome. I sat down where the toes of the ancient had crumbled to dust, and having inspected my fellowsearcher after relics, found that he was a good-looking and most attractive gentleman. Doing the hospitalities of the tomb, he offered me bread and cheese, which I ate in a spirit of harmony. I made known what I had come for, and he explained that he had been boarding at the farm for the sole purpose of opening mounds. We exchanged a list of our curiosities; he showed me how he had found the skeleton, lying due north and south, and that under the skull lay a heap of small charred bones, as of some animal offered in sacrifice. He even gave me my choice of fragments among the bones he had collected.

"Of course I saw that he was a kindred soul, a cognate of the ancients. We have since been the best of friends; have shared information and specimens, and got on delightfully until he began to make love to me."

"Indeed!" said Dr. Pils. "Well, this is a story of love and dry bones, sure enough. It is very fitting that you, forever grubbing among reliquaries with their tokens of the past, should find your lover in the grave of an Indian chief. Take my advice; leave your collecting mania, and marry."

Prudence shook her lovely head.

"He is every way eligible; good morals, good manners, good family, good fortune; but I had about made up my mind to die a spinster, possessor of a world-famous museum. Besides, doctor, you know during the tulip mania in Holland, marriages were made with the sole view of bringing divers rival bulbs into one family; and I have wondered whether

Tom Walford does not want my collection as much as he wants me."

"Jealous! jealous! as I live, of these very disjecta membra which you have been at so great pains to gather," cried the doctor. "But, Prudence, I am horrified at your cool manner of mentioning rifling graves and gathering bones."

"Satan reproving sin!" laughed Prudence. "Who but a doctor is guilty of studying his fellow mortals in the shape of cadavera?"

"That is for the sake of science," protested Doctor Pils.

"So am I laboring in behalf of science," said Prudence. "But now, if my antiquarian instinct does not deceive me, we have reached the entrance of the old Manor Hall.”

The doctor held open the great gate for Prudence. She began at once a swift but critical examination of the premises.

Here is obviously a fine opportunity for hinting at a presentiment. But adhering strictly to truth, we can only chronicle that no coming events cast their shadows before upon the jubilant spirits of our Prudence.

The doctor walked on by himself, muttering:

"Bless my soul! If that is not an innovation on the popular idea of a love story; finding a lover in a tomb, eating bread and cheese! And she thinks he is after her treasures of antiquity! Well, few as pretty girls would take such a perfectly humble view of the affair."

"Doctor!" cried Prudence, running up and pulling at his coat sleeve, "do look at these bricks in the walk; there is such a queer mark on every one."

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They were brought from England. The mark, as you will see, is the impress of the maker's hand, as he turned the bricks when they were in a soft state."

"Only to think," said Prudence, "here is the imprint of a hand that has been dust these hundred and fifty years at least. How each of these cheap things has ontlasted its maker. I wonder if he thought that he was leaving a trace of himself, to be seen by so many eyes in so many years!"

"Probably the brick-maker was not given to romancing," said Doctor Pils. Prudence stooped down, and put her little hand into the ancient mark; it didn't fit.

"And look at the door step," cried Miss Aubrey, "it is like three millstones of different sizes, piled up and bound with iron. How many feet have gone over those great stones; little children and old people; beauty, virtue, deviltry incarnate; brides and pall-bearers; besides all the revolutionary heroes, doubtless. Ah, see that woodbine, it looks nearly as old as the house!"

Prudence twisted off a twig, and put it in her waist-ribbon.

"There, this is a real English holly, brought from the ancestral home beyond the water." She put a sprig with her woodbine. "What ranges of sheds, offices, and granaries; everything for substantial comfort!"

Doctor Pils rapped on the back door; it was opened by a peony-faced woman, the tenant in charge, who readily consented to show them over the house. This first room, the kitchen, was wainscoted to the ceiling with oak panels. The visitors passed through a hall to a longer room, the old dining saloon; thence to a front parlor, where was a huge iron fireplace for wood, with an iron hearth sweeping into the room like the half of a millwheel. Between this chamber and its counterpart, cccupying the other half of the house front, was a large square hall, wainscoted, and having a brick paved floor, worn smooth and shining by the tread of feet. All the windows had cozy seats built in them.

which may have been

We cannot say whether or not Prudence thought that one of them would just hold herself and Tom Walford, sitting to discuss the antiquities of the habitation.

"Would you be pleased to walk up stairs?" said the peony-faced woman.

The stairway was very broad, winding up into the third story. Said Prudence:

"It is wide enough for a lady in full dress to come down escorted by her cavalier. Let us imagine how those old-time

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