EVANGELINE.

Somewhat apart from the village, and nearer the Basin of Minas,

Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand-Pre, Dwelt on his goodly acres; and with him, directing his

household,

Gentle Evangeline lived, his child, and the pride of the

village.

Stalworth and stately in form was the man of seventy winters; Hearty and hale was he, an oak that is covered with snow

flakes;

White as the snow were his locks, and his cheeks as brown as the oak leaves.

Fair was she to behold, that maiden of seventeen summers. Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by the wayside,

Black, yet how softly they gleamed neath the brown shade of her tresses!

Sweet was her breath as the breath of kine that feed in the meadows.

Fairer was she when, on Sunday morn, while the bell from its turret

Sprinkled with holy sounds the air, as the priest with his

hyssop

Sprinkles the congregation, and scatters blessings upon them, Down the long street she passed, with her chaplet of beads and her missal,

Wearing her Norman cap, and her kirtle of blue, and the

ear-rings,

Brought in the olden time from France, and since, as an

heirloom,

Handed down from mother to child, through long generations. But a celestial brightness - a more ethereal beauty

Shone on her face and encircled her form, when after con

fession,

Homeward serenely she walked with God's benediction

upon her.

When she had passed, it seemed like the ceasing of exquisite music.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

MARY.

Of the new-comers, there was a group over by the south wall, consisting of a man, a woman, and a donkey, which requires extended notice. The man stood by the animal's head, holding a leading-strap. The donkey ate leisurely from an armful of green grass, of which there was an abundance in the market. In its sleepy content, the brute did not admit of disturbance from the bustle and clamor about; no more was it mindful of the woman sitting upon its back in a cushioned pillion. An outer robe of dull woolen stuff completely covered her person, while a white wimple veiled her head and neck.

The sun streamed garishly over the stony face of the famous locality, and under its influence Mary, the daughter of Joachim, dropped the wimple entirely, and bared her head. She was not more than fifteen. Her form, voice, and manner belonged to the period of transition from girlhood. Her face was perfectly oval, her complexion more pale than fair. The nose was faultless; the lips slightly parted, were full and ripe, giving to the lines of the mouth warmth, tenderness, and trust; the eyes were blue and large, and shaded by drooping lids and long lashes; and, in harmony with all, a flood of golden hair, in the style permitted to Jewish brides, fell unconfined down her back to the pillion on which she sat. The throat and

neck had the downy softness sometimes seen, which leaves the artist in doubt whether it is an effect of contour or color. To these charms of feature and person were added others more indefinable— an air of purity which only the soul can impart, and of abstraction natural to such as think of things impalpable. Often, with trembling lips, she raised her eyes to heaven, itself not more deeply blue; often she crossed her hands upon her breast, as in adoration and prayer; often she raised her head like one listening eagerly for a calling voice. Now and then, midst his slow utterance, Joseph turned to look at her, and, catching the expression kindling her face as with light, forgot his theme, and with bowed head, wondering, plodded on. "BEN-HUR. "

LEW. WALLACE.

PRISCILLA.

So through the Plymouth woods John Alden went on

his errand;

Heard, as he drew near the door, the musical voice of Priscilla

Singing the hundredth Psalm, the grand old Puritan anthem, Then, as he opened the door, he beheld the form of the

maiden

Seated beside her wheel, and the carded wool like a snow-drift Piled at her knee, her white hands feeding the ravenous

spindle,

While with her foot on the treadle she guided the wheel in its motion.

Open wide on her lap lay the well-worn psalm-book of

Ainsworth,

Printed in Amsterdam, the words and the music together, Rough-hewn, angular notes, like stones in the wall of a churchyard,

Darkened and overhung by the running vines of the verses. Such was the book from whose pages she sang the old Pu. ritan anthem,

She, the Puritan girl, in the solitude of the forest,

Making the humble house and the modest apparel of home

spun

Beautiful with her beauty, and rich with the wealth of her

being!

"COURTSHIP OF MILES STANDISH. "H. W. LONGFELLOW.

ROMOLA.

"Ah, you are come back, Moso. It is well. We have wanted nothing. "

The voice came from the farther end of a long, spacious room, surrounded with shelves, on which books and antiquities were arranged in scrupulous order. Here and there on separate stands in front of the shelves, were placed a beautiful feminine torso; a headless statue, with an uplifted muscular arm wielding a bloodless sword; rounded, dimpled, infantine limbs severed from the trunk, invited the lips to kiss the cold marble; some well preserved Roman busts; and two or three vases from Magna Grecia. A large table in the centre was covered with antique bronze lamps and small vessels in dark pottery. The color of these objects was chiefly pale or somber; the vellum bindings, with their deep ridged backs, gave little relief to the marble, livid with long burial: the once splendid patch of car. pet at the farther end of the room had long been worn to dimness; the dark bronzes wanted sunlight upon them to bring out their tinge of green, and the sun was not yet high enough to send gleams of brightness through the narrow windows that looked on the Via di Bardi.

The only spot of bright color was made by the hair of a tall maiden of seventeen or eighteen, who was standing before a carved leggio, or reading desk, such as is often seen in the choirs of Italian churches. The hair was of reddish gold color, enriched by an unbroken small ripple, such as may be seen in the sunset clouds on grandest autumnal evenings. It was confined by a black fillet above her ears, from which it rippled forward again, and made a natural veil for her neck above her square-cut gown of black serge. Her eyes were bent on a large volume placed before her: one long white hand rested on the reading desk, and the other clasped the back of her father's chair.

The blind father sat with head uplifted and turned a little aside towards his daughter, as if he were looking at her. His delicate paleness, set off by the black velvet cap, which surmounted his drooping white hair, made all the more perceptible the likeness between his aged features and those of the young maiden, whose cheeks were also without any tinge of the rose. There was the same refinement of brow and nostril in both, counterbalanced by a firm mouth and powerful chin, which gave an expression of proud tenacity and latent impetuousness; an expression carried out in the backward poise of the girl's head, and the grand line of her neck and shoulders. It was a type of face of which one could not venture to say whether it would inspire love or only that unwilling admiration which is mixed with dread; the question must be decided by the eyes, which often seem charged with a more direct message from the soul. But the eyes of the father had long been silent, and the eyes of the daughter were bent on the Latin pages of "Politian's Miscellanea " from which she was reading aloud.

GEORGE ELIOT.