and untuneful singing in my own head? Or had the down, wherewith my pillow was filled, acquired that faculty of voice which the birds, from whom it had been plucked, had forfeited? Assuredly I could not have been more startled, had forty flocks of plucked geese come cackling round my bed, crying, "Give us back our feathers!"

Again, I suspended my breathing, and hushed myself into an intense fit of listening. There, still, were the small crisp noises just under my ear, oozing apparently upward from the pillow as clearly as drops of water would have trickled through it. And it was still a sound as of the tearing and crumpling of many quires of paper. A bank clerk, pulling, pinching, and whisking about piles of notes, from nine to five daily, would make less noise in a week.

I began to suspect that the fairies were playing pranks under my head; that Oberon and Titania had been tearing up all the letters which had passed between them during their last quarrel, and that their small-fingered subjects were scrambling for the tiniest pieces, to fold up, three-corner-wise, and send as love-notes or challenges to one another.

Perplexed past endurance, and finding, upon repeated trials, that either ear, the instant it was placed to the pillow, caught sounds as audibly, as it would through the keyhole of a quiet family's nursery, I changed my position, and dreaming that I was wide awake (perhaps I was), looked desperately upward through the darkness at the invisible ceiling of the room; when what was my amazement to behold, in less than the sixtieth part of an instant, a thick shower of very little bits of paper descending on every side: some of a creamy hue, some bluish, some rather pinky-wire-wove, cr glazed, gilt-edged or sable-bordered --but all falling about me like snow-flakes, or hovering over me like white feathers, which rather floated than fell.

"Did I ever ?" was the question which I silently asked myself in my dream.

My eyes, at this strange spectacle, started far out of my head, and glowed with an unnatural light; by the aid of which, as by that of a pair of long fours, I was indeed enabled to view the scene. Nor was the fire that burned in them useless, for, as the fragments of paper descended, the more I gazed at them, the plainer I could see that they were all written upon, possibly by that process which requires warmth to give legible effect to it. They were bits of letters-every one; indited by many hands, and addressed to many persons, on subjects without umber.

Fast and faster yet they fell-each one bearing its little word or syllable, or at least the tail of a g, or an i's dot-until presently the room began to fill, and the fragments crowded together seemed to attach themselves to one another. In a few minutes, perhaps fifty of them would have adhered, and formed a sort of sheet; and then another flock of flakes, descending from various points, would get into companionship, and so unite and thus they floated above me, as I gazed upwards, like fleecy clouds, of a rather square and formal pattern it is true, and scribbled mysteriously all over.

I could now plainly discern, as they hovered near me, that the mingled multitude of scraps, the tattered and scattered remains of so much correspondence, had again formed themselves into letters-yes, into readable epistles; though they had certainly not re-assumed their

original shapes, or revived themselves verbatim et literatim. As on a field of battle, where a gallant soldier's body is apt to be buried with another gallant soldier's head-or, should his legs have been carried away, he is interred haply with the lower extremities of a veteran who belonged to a different regiment, so here I could perceive that many of the fragments had fallen into strange company, and attached themselves to pieces to which they bore no epistolary relation.

Thus, on one sheet which descended into my hand, I saw that the writing was throughout the same, but the beginning and the end had been written at different periods: the first sentences seemed traced with a quill whose ink was as generous wine to communicate joy; but the latter part had been scrawled with a steel pen dipped in gall. It began with overflowing friendship, wondering what the writer would not gladly sacrifice for him whom he addressed; but it terminated with civil regrets for altered circumstances, and a formal "I have the honour to remain."

I caught the first lines of a love-letter-they were rapturous. Love was life; it included all of happiness the world contains,-and every word expressed the writer's conviction that wealth is dross, and parental consent a superfluity; but a discrepancy ensued, for there was something at the close about the necessity of an ample fortune, the charm of filial obedience, and the proud duty imposed upon young hearts of tearing themselves asunder, and seeking happiness somewhere else, "remaining ever, &c."

Here the right persons were associated in the rejoined letters, but with the terrible disadvantage of wrong dates. In other cases, I detected mutilated notes in one hand-writing-a lady's, but evidently addressed to two different persons, thus:

"My dearest Jemima,-let nothing prevent you from coming; remember, it is my birthday, and without you what felicity could be mine! How exquisite is a pure sympathy between minds such as ours. Come in your blue lutestring; nothing becomes you half so much. You must forgive me for asking that treacherous thing, Julia― I can't help it. . . . . All will go wrong without you, and so I rely. But how should I hesitate at any time to confide in heavenly truth like yours; the worst of it is, that odious Jemima will, I fear, be with us, flirting in her horrid blue lutestring. But let the joy of a friendship like ours be unclouded by a thought of such intrusions. Ever, my

dearest Julia, &c."

There was one at which, as it caught my eye, I laughed so loudly, as to be in great fear of waking myself. What added to the oddity of it was, that it was addressed to a particular friend of my own, but in two different hands; and thus it ran :

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My dear sir, will you give us the pleasure of your company at dinner, or proceedings will be taken against you without further notice. Yours, &c., Rasp and Clerk."

The next epistle came fluttering by, as if half ashamed of itself; yet it was full of virtuous sentiments, clad in the best Latin of the best authors, and painted the youthful writer's studious, respectable, and devout college life to the eyes of a liberal, but grave and dignified uncle. It was clear, however, that a wrong postscript had affixed itself to this letter to the tune of "P.S. Come down, Jack, and blow

a cloud with us. I've a case or two of good things, and lots o' tin from Uncle Starch; but come at once, my Flanders brick, for these infernal duns are grabbing at it like blazes."

A lady's hand-writing again attracted my gaze, but here there was an anomaly relative to dates. "July 20th-As for Adolphus, as you call him, he is detestable. Was there ever such a conceited fright! I would not have him if there were not another man in the world. . . For I must frankly confess that my whole heart is in this engagement, and that without Adolphus existence would be a blank-August 21st." Among the thousands floating about, I caught one in a schoolboy's hand; the first portion written like copper-plate, the latter upon the pothook plan--but the whole addressed to a revered parent:

"Honoured father,-The happy season has returned when filial affection finds its proudest gratification in reporting to beloved parents the progress of those intellectual, moral, and religious studies, which it is the blessed privilege of your son to enjoy at Birch-grove. For the bodily as well as mental improvement, which I trust on my return at Christmas you will be able to recognise, I am indebted to that judicious kindness which placed me under the tender and enlightened care of my present preceptor.... Aunt will giv you this she sez, and i wish you may git it, for I want some more Marmalaid and also a cake, for thay keep me so Hungrey I cant lern nothing, also a large piece of tinn to put at the back of my Westcot, for I dont like the jolly wackings thats going on here-and I dont mean to come Back I can tell you, and Aunt says I sharnt, but as I have got sum Curran jam I shall conclude, so good by, dear papa, your affectionate son Nixy, short for Nicholas."

I had another fit of laughter, which nearly woke me, on solving another riddle-a note, commencing with expressions of the most delicate and idolatrous love, suddenly turning into cold business matters, and ending with "now don't make a fool of yourself by sitting up again, for I shall be late." The last lines were part of a letter written after marriage-the first were not. Specimens of this class were plentiful.

I was also tickled with the absurdity of an aristocratic order to a tradesman to send in his account without delay, terminating with assurances of most distinguished consideration;" and a note to Mr. Buckstone, requesting orders for the theatre, might be seen gravely commencing with "Reverend sir."

Of the countless quires of paper which, in separate sheets, fluttered and fell around me, there was not a note without its grave or ridiculous contradiction. Some false fragments had engrafted themselves even on the truest stock, while in others some few scraps were wanting, leaving little holes in the epistle where the sincerity seemed to have dropped out. Here an affecting lecture on the solemn duties and flimsy vanities of life was cut up by an intruding inquiry, "Where the very best green silk twist is to be got," as the writer would "give the world to know;" and two or three lively notes, containing the particulars of a wedding, had been eked out with pieces bearing a mourning border-which possibly might not be altogether misplaced after all.

Here and there, I perceived a letter, in which the stray scraps and remnants had met together without any order or ceremony, so that

there was not the slightest pretension to meaning in the entire document. Yet it did not appear to be much inferior in style to many letters which are daily marked "confidential" or "immediate" by charming correspondents.

A terrible exposure was going on around me. Every sheet was a witness against somebody. Here Pride was unmasked, by the union of two halves of letters, one dated from a hovel, the other from a hall; there, Honesty was proved a scamp, by confessing in a postscript what the letter denied. Here Sincerity was stamped hypocrite, by the junction of praise and censure under its own hand; and there, Benevolence was convicted of subscribing to a public fund, and having thing to give away" in private. In each and all lurked some anomaly -harmless or criminal.

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no

The confusion at length totally obscured my senses; and I could read no more. The letters broke up again into flakes, the flakes melted into the darkness like snow, and I slept in serene unconsciousness till ten. The secret came out at breakfast in much tender concern about my night's rest. Had I slept? Could I forgive such forgetfulness?

"The ladies here," said my friend, in explanation, "fear that you may have quarrelled with your pillow. They are fond of making paper pillows for the poor and the invalided; and one of these being placed in readiness upon your bed, nobody remembered it until you were fast asleep."

A Paper Pillow! And I had been dreaming the family-secretsreading, in my sleep, the family-correspondence! There was a slumbering indelicacy in the very idea! I uttered no remonstrance against the cheap and charitable invention; but however cool and soothing may be the paper-pillow to some, I reflected, for my own part, that there was much practical wisdom, and a most exact and admirable simile in that pretty saying of King Once-upon-a-time

"I'll to my couch; like me, a downy one !”

Who hoped but little gain,

Yet, while our errors we must own,
And blush for our disgrace,

And mourn the slain whose bones have

strown

The dreary mountain-pass,

We bless their names the more who've

made

Our trampled laurels bloom,

Whose conquering hands have proudly led
The long-lost captives home.

May our defenders thus succeed
Through every chance and change;

And knew their triumph could but serve But never more may England need

To wipe away a stain.

Such Victory, such Revenge!

A LEGEND

OF NORMANDY.

BY THE BARONESS DE CALABRELLA.*

SOME travellers, attracted by the beauty of the surrounding scenery, and induced by the fatigue attendant on a long tour, decided to rest for awhile at the comfortable hotel to be found at St. Maurice. In their walks they observed notices of a chateau to be let, furnished, in the immediate neighbourhood; and more and more enchanted with the drives and views, abounding in fine landscape scenery, they resolved to make inquiries about it, with a view of possibly becoming its tenants for the remainder of the summer and autumn months.

pro

Their first business was to see the agent referred to by the notices, who gave every encouragement to their project by his florid description of its beauties and local advantages. It was evident that he remarked their surprise at the smallness of the rent required, as he quickly observed "Monsieur le Marquis is anxious the chateau should be tenanted-the amount of rent is not so much his object." The next morning they set off to visit this abode; but on directing the driver of the char-à-banc, hired for the occasion, to the Chateau de le Guimandier, they perceived a reluctance in his manner, and were surprised to find him remain stationary and cross himself, as he repeated" To the Chateau de le Guimandier! Is Monsieur quite sure that it is to the Chateau de le Guimandier he wishes to go?" On being answered in the affirmative, he shrugged his shoulders and ceeded, but at so slow a pace that the agent was impatiently pacing the avenue in front of the chateau, awaiting their arrival. They found the Chateau de le Guimandier a low structure, occupying a large site, its turretted angles giving it a castellated appearance. Its broad terrace, which ran along the whole of the back front, commanded one of the finest views in the country, while, like many French chateaux, its approach was by an avenue of chestnut-trees. partially furnished, and the articles of furniture were evidently very The house was but ancient, but not devoid of comfort; and the party were so well pleased with all they beheld, that on quitting it they directed the agent to call on them the following morning, to conclude the arrangements necessary for giving them possession. They had been frequently forced, on their approach to the chateau, to urge the driver to quicken his pace, but on quitting it, they had to caution him to be careful in the descent, so rapidly did he drive. On entering St. Maurice, they perceived their courier looking wild, and running towards them, as if he had been anxiously expecting them: ere he reached the char-à-banc, he was breathless; and though he fixed a look of terrified inquiry on them, he appeared unable to give utterance to his feelings. At length,

on being pressed to tell what ailed him, he said, in a faltering voice, and trembling from head to foot-" Mon Dieu! seigneur! the cat-did it appear?" This interrogation, and the man's wildness of manner, excited the curiosity of the party, especially as, on mention being made of the cat, they perceived the driver again signing himself with the cross, and listening intently for their answer; and they became almost alarmed, when, on arriving at the hotel, they found the landlady looking for them with nearly the same appearance of terror as their courier

A splendid and seasonable little gift-book, entitled the "Prism of Thought," by the accomplished Baroness, has just issued from the press, to which we beg to direct attention."-ED.