as if it were the remnant of some giant wall, that had in former ages guarded that little valley, until the noble river had come down in her might, and cloven it at a blow. Here they lived ; the gentle stream murmured at their feet its song of peace, but the bleak crag frowned gloomily beyond ; they listened to the soothing, and heeded not the frown. They were nature's free children, happy in all the enthusiasm of youthful love.
One morn, when yellow autumn was first beginning to blight the glory of summer, the hunter went forth in search of game. Noina gazed after him as he crossed the stream ; he bounded lightly from his canoe into the forest, and soon disappeared. The morning passed away, the sun rose proudly to his meridian, and then turned upon his journey downward to the west, and yet the hunter returned not. His young bride, impatient of so long a stay, seated herself upon the bank, and turned an anxious eye upon the opposite shore ; all there was silent as the tomb ; and the first cloud of apprehension rose, she knew not why, over the clear sunshine of her spirit | -she looked upward, and the precipice seemed to be scowling upon her. She turned away in terror. Suddenly a loud and furious growl of rage and agony, coming, as it were, from the very air, broke upon the oppressive silence. Instinctively she cast a startled glance upon the spot from which she had just turned away. Her eyes, wildly opened, and fixed in speechless horror upon it ; her lips were parted, as if an unutterable shriek of woe had died upon them ; for there, upon the very edge of the cliff, is the husband of her love, in deadly conflict with one of the fiercest animals of the American forest- the panther. The beast, wounded, and stung to madness by the pain, has turned in fury on his assailant. The struggle is a hard one. The hunter is strong and brave, his eye quails not, he utters no cry; though the fangs of the beast are deep in his flesh. He strives to raise his weapon, but the muscles have been literally torn from his arm, and his strokes are powerless. He feels his strength each moment lessening, as lessens the distance between them and the precipice. They are upon the very verge- one final, frantic struggle ; despair nerved his mangled limbs ; he springs wildly backward, but, held in the bloody grasp of the panther, the impulse served but to raise him an instant from the rock ; and the next, with a curve, and then a fearful plunge, down they are hurled-with a loud yell from the beast, but the heroic Indian is dumb -down-down, a piercing shriek rends the air, the pent up anguish finds for a moment vent ; and the next, the bride lay senseless on the ground. When she awoke, darkness was upon the earth. She thought that she had been long asleep, and had dreamed some horrible dream ; the forms, which flitted through memory's magic chamber, were vague and shadowy, but, all were terrible. She turned for her husband, he
was not by her side ; she called upon him-no answer, but the echo came upon her ear. She arose, and groped about. Alas, her soul was as dark as the sky above her, and her reason and memory as wavering as were her footsteps in the gloom. The poor girl was crazed. She wandered about all that night. She wandered for days, still calling piteously upon her husband, and chiding him for his long delay. The hunter, as he pursued his game in the forest, often met her, with abstracted eye, scanning the whole horizon, as if looking anxiously for the coming of some one from afar ; and dropped a tear of sympathy for the poor girl's wretchedness. At length, one day, she came, by accident, upon the very spot of that bloody contest. Deep stains were upon the rock ; she paused, seemed for a moment lost in thought, and then, as if a burning light had at once broke in upon her brain, she pressed her hands convulsively upon her brow, shrieked phrenziedly, " have I found you, my love ? I have searched long, and you have called, and called, and chided me for my delay ! But I have found you now, and, I come, I come !" She sprang wildly far over the rock, and sank a shattered corpse down the deep gorge where her husband had perished- and the dark brown lovers were in death again united. ELLA.
THE MIDNIGHT WIND. BY MOTHERWELL. MOURNFULLY! O, mournfully, This midnight wind doth sigh, Like some sweet plaintive melody Of ages long by; It speaks a tale of other years,-Of hopes that bloomed to die, Of sunny smiles that set in tears, And loves that mouldering lie !
Mournfully! O , mournfully This midnight wind doth moan ; It stirs some chord of memory In each dull heavy tone ; The voices of the much-loved dead Seem floating thereupon,All, all my fond heart cherished Ere death had made it lone. Mournfully! O, mournfully This midnight wind doth swell, With its quaint pensive minstrelsy, Hope's passionate farewell To the dreamy joys of early years, Ere yet grief's canker fell On the heart's bloom,-ay ! well may tears Start at that parting knell !
