is a most delightful one, and wears rather the appearance of a long avenue in an English park, than the approach to regions where winter holds eternal sway, amid torrents, precipices, and stupendous mountains. Several carts here passed us on their way, as the voiturier informed me, to the market at Geneva. They were the first indications of a town, and shortly after Bonneville opened up to our view.

THE SISTERS.

BY C. A. M. W.

Two fair girls on a flow'ry bank were resting side by side,
The elder on the morrow's morn to be a happy bride;
She sang the old familiar songs-and yet her cheek was pale-
And tears were gathering as she gazed adown the quiet vale;
To distant realms her pathway led-across the deep, salt sea,
Amid the lonely Indian haunts, her future destiny.

The younger sister, with clasped arms entwined around her neck,
And kissing off each falling tear she tried in vain to check,
Was whispering-" Do not leave us all—and this our happy home-
To see the wonders of the world, 'mid foreign scenes to roam,
You've not known him so long as us-then let him go alone-
Our mother's heart will yearn for thee when thou art really gone."

"I cannot let him go alone-for then my heart would break,
The Bible says-a husband's side the wife must ne'er forsake;
But darling, I will often write-and often tell to thee
Full tidings of the wondrous sights which we expect to see;
Where cluster spicy Indian isles, the halcyon we shall greet,
And dolphins sporting 'mong the rocks where foaming surges meet.

"And golden caverns in dark depths which often hidden lie,
We will explore-with forests, too, of ancient majesty;
O'er spiritual and lovely lakes-our swift canoes may skim,

Where torrents with tempestuous whirl raise awe-struck thoughts to Him;
And distant snow-clad hills, which breathe eternity serene,
Shall whisper in the solitude, of heavenly things unseen.

"The nightingales among the flowers oft sing at close of day—
And then my thoughts will wander back to those so far away;
Brushing the wild thyme through the woods of loveliest umbrage, glide,
Beloved forms-in spirit then I'll be at their dear side;

Beside the bean and clover fields perchance they saunter by,
And list the distant evening bells' sweet chiming melody.

"And when ye gaze at eventide on that sun-sprinkled water,
Our mother's silent prayer will be for her far distant daughter;
And you will clasp our father's hand and look into his face,
Not mournfully-but try and fill thy absent sister's place;
Remind them of the happy wife-speak of return so blest—
And on His all-protecting arm and presence bid them rest."

"But sister,"-urged the weeping child,—“ if he should love thee less, And not be kind to thee amid the lonely wilderness—

So far away from all thy kin-and thou so young and sweet— Thy tender heart would break—and we on earth should never meet," "Ah! when his love for me grows cold," and trembling spake the bride— "Then welcome death in Indian wilds-as by our mother's side."

MR. HIGGINBOTHAM'S CATASTROPHE,

BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, ESQ.

A YOUNG fellow, a tobacco-pedler by trade, was on his way from Morristown, where he had dealt largely with the Deacon of the Shaker settlement, to the village of Parker's Falls, on Salmon River. He had a neat little cart, painted green, with a box of cigars depicted on each side-panel, and an Indian chief, holding a pipe and a golden tobacco-stalk, on the rear. The pedler drove a smart little mare, and was a young man of excellent character, keen at a bargain, but none the worse liked by the Yankees ; who, as I have heard them say, would rather be shaved with a sharp razor than a dull one. Especially was he beloved by the pretty girls along the Connecticut, whose favor he used

to court by presents of the best smoking tobacco in his stock, knowing well that the country lasses of New England are gonerally great performers on pipes. Moreover, as will be seen in the course of my story, the pedler was inquisitive, and something of a tattler, always itching to hear the news, and anxious to tell it again.

After an early breakfast at Morristown, the tobacco pedler, whose name was Dominicus Pike, had travelled seven miles through a solitary piece of woods, without speaking a word to any body but himself and his little grey mare. It being nearly seven o'clock, he was as eager to hold a morning gossip, as a city shopkeeper to read the morning paper. An opportunity seemed at hand, when, after lighting a cigar with a sun-glass, he looked up, and perceived a man coming over the brow of the hill, at the foot of which the pedler had stopped his green cart. Dominicus watched him as he descended, and noticed that he carried a bundle over his shoulder on the end of a stick, and travelled with a weary yet determined pace. He did not look as if he had started in the freshness of the morning, but had footed it all night, and meant to do the same all day.

"Good morning, mister," said Dominicus, when within speaking distance. "You go a pretty good jog. What's the latest news at Parker's Falls?"

The man pulled the broad brim of a grey hat over his eyes, and answered, rather sullenly, that he did not come from Parker's Falls, which, as being the limit of his own day's journey, the pedler had naturally mentioned in his inquiry.

"Well, then," rejoined Dominicus Pike, "let's have the latest news where you did come from. I'm not particular about Parker's Falls. Any place will answer,"

Being thus importuned, the traveller-who was as ill looking a fellow as one would desire to meet, in a solitary piece of woods -appeared to hesitate a little, as if he was either searching his memory for news, or weighing the expediency of telling it. At last, mounting on the step of the cart, he whispered in the ear of Dominicus, though he might have shouted aloud, and no other mortal would have heard him.

"I do remember one little trifle of news," said he. "Old Mr. Higginbotham, of Kimballton, was murdered in his orchard, at eight o'clock last night, by an Irishman and a nigger; they strung him up to the branch of a St. Michael's pear tree, where nobody would find him till the morning."

As soon as this horrible intelligence was communicated, the stranger betook himself to his journey again, with more speed than ever, not even turning his head when Dominicus invited him to smoke a Spanish cigar and relate all the particulars.

The pedler whistled to his mare and went up the hill, pondering on the doleful fate of Mr. Higginbotham, whom he had known in the way of trade, having sold him many a bunch of long nines, and a great deal of pigtail, lady's twist, and fig tobacco. He was rather astonished at the rapidity with which the news had spread. Kimballton was nearly sixty miles distant, in a straight line; the murder had been perpetrated only at eight o'clock the preceding night; yet Dominicus had heard of it at seven in the morning, when, in all probability, poor Mr. Higginbotham's own family had but just discovered his corpse, hanging on the St. Michael's pear tree. The stranger on foot must have worn seven-league boots, to travel at such a

rate.

"Ill news flies fast, they say," thought Diminicus Pike; "but this beats railroads. The fellow ought to be hired to go express with the President's Message."

The difficulty was solved, by supposing that the narrator had made a mistake of one day, in the date of the occurrence; so that our friend did not hesitate to introduce the story at every tavern and country store along the road, expending a whole bunch of Spanish wrappers among at least twenty horrified audiences. He found himself invariably the first bearer of the intelligence, and was so pestered with questions that he could not avoid filling up the outline, till it became quite a respectable narrative. He met with one piece of corroborative evidence. Mr. Higginbotham was a trader; and a former clerk of his, to whom Dominicus related the facts, testified that the old gentleman was accustomed to return home through the orchard, about night-fall, with the money and valuable papers of the store in his pocket. The clerk manifested but little grief at Mr. Higginbotham's catastrophe, hinting, what the pedler had discovered in his own dealings with him, that he was a crusty old fellow, as close as a vice. His property would descend to a pretty niece, who was now keeping school in Kimballton.

What with telling the news for the public good, and driving bargains for his own, Dominicus was so much delayed on the road, that he chose to put up at a tavern, about five miles short of Parker's Falls. After supper, lighting one of his prime cigars, he seated himself in the bar-room, and went through the story of the murder, which had grown so fast that it took him half an hour to tell. There were as many as twenty people in the room, nineteen of whom received it all for gospel. But the twentieth was an elderly farmer who had arrived on horseback a short time before, and was now seated in a corner, smoking his pipe. When the story was concluded, he

rose up very deliberately, brought his chair right in front of Dominicus, and stared him full in the face, puffing out the vilest tobacco-smoke the pedler had ever smelt.

"Will you make affidavit," demanded he, in the tone of a country justice taking an examination, "that old Squire Higginbotham of Kimballton was murdered in his orchard the night before last, and found hanging on his great pear tree, yesterday morning?"

"I tell the story as I heard it, mister," answered Dominicus, dropping his half-burnt cigar; "I don't say that I saw the thing done. So I can't take my oath that he was murdered exactly in that way."

"But I can take mine," said the farmer," that if Squire Higginbotham was murdered night before last, I drank a glass of bitters with his ghost this morning. Being a neighbour of mine, he called me into his store, as I was riding by, and treated me, and then asked me to do a little business for him on the road. He did'nt seem to know any more about his own murder than I did."

"Why, then it can't be a fact!" exclaimed Dominicus Pike. "I guess he'd have mentioned, if it was, "said the old farmer; and he removed his chair back to the corner, leaving Dominicus quite down in the mouth.

Here was a sad resurrection of old Mr. Higginbotham! The pedler had no heart to mingle in the conversation any more, but comforted himself with a glass of gin and water, and went to bed, where, all night long, he dreamt of hanging on the St. Michael's pear tree. To avoid the old farmer (whom he so detested. that his suspension would have pleased him better than Mr. Higginbotham's), Dominicus rose in the gray of the morning, put the little mare into the green cart, and trotted swiftly away towards Parker's Falls. The fresh breeze, the dewy road, and the pleasant summer dawn, revived his spirits, and might have encouraged him to repeat the old story, had there been any body awake to hear it. But he met neither ox-team, light wagon, chaise, horseman, nor foot-traveller, till just as he crossed Salmon River, a man came trudging down to the bridge with a bundle over his shoulder, on the end of a stick.

"Good morning, mister," said the pedler, reining in his mare. "If you come from Kimballton or that neighbourhood, may be you can tell me the real fact about this affair of old Mr. Higginbotham. Was the old fellow actually murdered two or three nights ago, by an Irishman and a nigger?".

Dominicus had spoken in too great a hurry to observe at first that the stranger himself had a deep tinge of negro blood. On hearing this sudden question, the Ethiopian appeared to change