thereby, the mystery seemed to deepen and as- commentary as my story proceeds, and you will sume more unfathomable proportions. Rays of light there were; but so obscured and intermingled with shadows as only to puzzle her the more. She was greatly agitated; she could not speak her thoughts and conjectures, but only turn an appealing look upon her father as she handed him back the letter, trembling now with an indefinable dread lest the secret she had so long yearned to know should, in its unveiling, strike more terror in her soul than had its long, grim, phantom pre sence. "Be calm, my dear child," said Mr. Neville, seeing her excessive agitation; "all will soon be made clear to you. Your patience and loving obedience, with its world of trying, painful sacrifices, will soon be rewarded; and however much you may blame me and others for our part in this life drama, yet in so far as your own fate has been mingled with it, a paeon of thankfulness will go up from your soul to know that in all your share of sorrow, undying remorse can have no part. I cannot, however, enter upon the subject to-day; but to morrow you will bring your work, and I will then tell you such a tale of early love and sorrowful realizations as will make your own past experiences fade into forgetfulness. It is a record, It is a record, the effect of which upon my whole life fell like the lava of Vesuvius, leaving only a track of stones and ashes to look back upon." At the appointed hour next day Edith proceeded to her father's room with a beating heart, wondering how far the pending disclosures would influence her past and future. She found him sitting up and looking better and brighter than she had expected. When she expressed the pleasure this gave her, accompanied by her usual kiss, he replied "that the prospect of being at last released from the burden of an incubus that had pressed upon more than half his life, was well calculated to make him both look and feel better. And all this protracted misery had its rise in one fatal error. Most truly in my case has the prophecy of Scripture been verified, the sins of the father shall be visited upon the children.' But that you, too, should have suffered through and from the same offence is indeed strange. For although consequences are often through physical infirmities entailed, yet it is rare for the same moral defect to be inherited and thus in part atoned for. You will understand the force of this see a stronger illustration than even your own experience has afforded of the inevitable retribution that is sure to follow an act which, however justi fied it may seem to be by circumstances, yet if contrary to the express law of God or of our own moral obligations, will leave in its train a weight of misery that scarce a life can atone for. And now for my story. It was in the summer, then, of 183- that I came in possession of the fortune left me by my father; and being weary with my long course of study, and restless for some change that would give me a glimpse of the world that lay on the other side of my mountain home, I determined, being my own master, to realize those longings, and accordingly started for a tour through the Eastern States and Canada. "Without any very definite plan of action, my first visit was made to New York; and after wearying of that modern Babel, I bent my steps to Niagara. An unusually large company had assembled there that season, and so great was the crowd, and so promiscuous the assemblage, that I despaired of knowing whom to choose or whom to pass unnoticed. So in this dilemma I determined to waive for the nonce companionship, and devote myself to the study of those glories of Nature so profusely scattered around me, feeling sure that neither ennui or isolation could attack me through such glowing and varied charms. I had been thus entertaining myself for nearly two weeks when one day, having wandered with book in hand, and seated myself so as to command a view of the most beautiful point of the Falls, a gentleman whom I had frequently noticed as the head of a seemingly delightful and happy party, accosted me with some remarks growing out of the surroundings of the time and place. It did not require much time to take his measure, or to find that I had unexpectedly at last met a congenial spirit that would do much toward enhancing the pleasure of a visit that so far had no cause of complaint save the want of some such companionship. We sat together a long time, discussing many subjects, and from that moment sprang a friendship that lasted through many years of change and trial to both, and was only interrupted at the time of the opposition made on my part to your marriage with Clarence. That friend, as you suppose, was Mr. Livingston. "On the same day of our first interview he in sisted upon introducing me to his wife and her sister, Miss Mowbray, and from that time I became one of their coterie; sat at the same table, shared their rides and walks, and made my future movements entirely subservient to their wishes and needs. After prolonging our stay a few more weeks at Niagara, we all started for Canada, and between that and Boston the summer passed as it were on the wings of happiness. I leave you to form your own conclusions as to the consequences that followed a constant and unrestrained communication of three months thus spent between two young, ardent hearts. "No word-painting of mine can do justice or give you an idea of the spirituelle beauty of Edith Mowbray; yes, your own name. Neither can I describe the peculiar loveliness of her disposition and character. Her beauty charmed, while her simplicity and youthful abandon won every heart. The trustfulness and childlike simplicity of her thoughts lent an indescribable fascination to everything she said or did. There was an infinite variety in her which I never before or since have seen in any other woman. You could as soon have wearied of heaven as of her; for she carried the charm of Eden wherever she went, and no wile of Satan could taint her purity. Well, under such favorable circumstances love made rapid progress, never dreaming that any cloud could arise to darken our sunlighted horizon. Her sister and Mr. Livingston expressed themselves delighted with the prospect of owning me for a brother; but a storm, most unexpected and unlooked for, was even then ready to burst over our unconscious heads. Very naturally both the ladies had spoken frequently of me in their letters to their father as a connecting link in their pleasant variety of the summer tour. "Moving as rapidly as we did from place to place, it was not often that letters from home reached us, and not until we had been in Boston several days did we obtain the package of letters all had been sure of finding awaiting us there. Among them were a number, bearing successive dates, to Mrs. Livingston and Edith, the purport of which dispelled all our happiness in the present, and clothed the future in dark, uncertain clouds. I, a man he had never seen, whose qualifications for good or evil were all unknown to him, was the unfortunate, foredoomed occasion of all this newfound trouble, all being the result of a senseless prejudice, devoid of foundation or reason. "You know that my father was an Englishman, dating his genealogy back to the time of the Norman Conquest, and taking great pride in the ancient glory associated with the name and house of de Neville. It seems that Mr. Mowbray, likewise an Englishman, was equally proud and tenacious of his name and ancestry, which, being Saxon, took precedence of course of the Norman lords, between many families of whom a feud existed, which was fostered and encouraged for many generations. I learned then for the first time that such had been the cases between the houses of Mowbray and de Neville; but for a short period, under the influence of a more Christian and yielding generation, there was a cessation of hostilities. "During the War of the Roses it again, however, broke out, and all the subsequent members of the Mowbray family had adhered to it with the most tenacious and inveterate animosity. The sole representative at that time was a man of the most violent and unmitigated prejudices. Strong in his feelings of either love or hate, he nursed them as a part of his religion, and this trait of family history he looked upon as a sacred inheritance, to be treasured at all costs. "He had been a widower many years, and ever since the marriage of Mrs. Livingston, Edith had made her home with her sister, Mr. Mowbray being too much engrossed by his business to care for the trouble of keeping up an establishment, or to be burdened with the responsibility of looking after the physical or moral culture of a young girl. From time to time he paid them visits, and though Edith loved her father, and felt proud of his talents, yet her natural timidity of character kept her in such deadly fear of his violent temper and prejudices, that she was ready to endure any mere personal sacrifices rather than call a manifestation of either into life. "Experience and self-confidence would no doubt in time have regulated this dread; but then it overpowered almost every other feeling. You can imagine, then, her state of mind when those letters made her first acquainted with the facts just related, and commanded her, under penalty of his heaviest wrath and dying curse, to break off at once all communication with me, and return immediately either with her sister to her home or to him in New York. Matters had proceeded too far with both to yield very readily even to such a malediction. I might as well have been ordered effects of his influence with her in my regard, though I counted upon the strength of her love for me, trusting to it and my own eloquence for the ratification of her promise, spite of her father's stern command. I wrote at once, and determined to delay my departure a while, hoping that some favorable circumstance would arise to guide me in my future course. "How strange it is, that Providence—or is it fate-that seems to make for us the very opportunity our wishes crave! opportunities that, alas! too often hasten a catastrophe that might have been indefinitely postponed, or entirely averted! I had not waited long in suspense, when an undreamed of chance, opened a way to the furtherance of my dearest hopes. I received intelligence from Edith to the effect that her father had been to tear out with my own hands in true Aztec fashion the living, palpitating heart of Edith as to have deliberately obeyed this command. As the family had already made arrangement to return to their home in the northern part of the State of New York, we at once set out, and wended our way thither with anxious hearts and sad forebodings. For my own part I had made a solemn resolution never to relinquish my claim on Edith to so senseless an objection, but to see and reason with Mr. Mowbray, and strive to convince him of the madness and cruelty of thus sacrificing two lives for the sake of an absurd prejudice. Accordingly, I accompanied them home, remaining one day, then parted, leaving Edith somewhat buoyed by my own hopes of a successful mission. "Arrived in New York, I at once sought and found Mr. Mowbray, and upon announcing my-called suddenly away to England, to take posself, the gathering storm expressed in his naturally stern visage gave but little encouragement to my hopes. Before many words were spoken on either side, I learned that whatever of hereditary feeling may have originated his hatred of my name and race, that it had been intensified by a personal quarrel between himself and my father, growing out of a love both entertained for the same woman, my father being victor and carrying off the prize. Never in all my subsequent experience or in the knowledge that my profession has given me of the secrets of hearts and of the depths of passion and malice that can there lie smoldering, until some demon hand lifts the mask, have I seen anything to equal the intense implacable bitterness that swayed this man's thoughts and acts. Even I, strong and brave man that I was, stood appalled as he poured forth the venom of his wrath, and for the first time I comprehended the deadly fear that had taken such strong possession of the mind of a woman so frail and gentle as my Edith. "I left his presence in a troubled, wretched state of mind, but with neither will nor inclination to humor his senseless caprices and unchristian sentiments by yielding my love for Edith. Still, I was not altogether without fear as to the PAUSE BEFORE YOU FOLLOW EXAMPLE.-A mule laden with salt, and an ass, laden with wool, went over a brook together. By chance, the mule became wet, the salt melted, and his burden became lighter. After they had passed, the mule told session of an inheritance, which, with the settle- his good fortune to the ass, who thinking to fare as well, wet his pack at the next ford; but his load became heavier, and he broke down under it. That which helps one man, may hinder another. SOMETHING ABOUT TAPESTRY. BY ELEANOR MOORE HIESTAND. "He spake, and Argive Helen called her maids IT is an old familiar story, that of Arachne, the weft; then they consolidate the work by inserting a comb, whose teeth they pass between the threads of the warp." What is our surprise when we find that this is literally nothing more than an explication of the methods of weaving tapestry now so successfully employed at Paris! It seems incomprehensible that the accomplishment which we have arrogated as essentially modern should have been been acquired in such perfection by a maiden of Ancient AN EGYPTIAN EMBROIDERING. Lydia, that, as Ovid says, it was a pleasure, "as while she wrought, to view each touch, Whether the shapeless wool in balls she wound, Or with swift motion turned the spindle round." It is true that the story of Arachne is nothing more than a remnant of Greek mythology; but it serves a definite purpose in coming down to us from so reinote an antiquity, since it reveals the fact that the old Hellenic race was familiar with the intricate art of weaving, even anterior to the Tro erable failure, and she condemned, as a punishment | jan war, as is evident also by the references quoted for her presumption, to the form of a spider, so to spin perishable festoons for obscure corners, whence perhaps at the present day she looks out upon the splendid tapestries of modern times, and reflects upon her own futile efforts with shame and envy. Perhaps to many of us it has never occurred that the shuttle and loom of Arachne could have been the forerunner of the famous manufactory of the Gobelins; but if we turn to the Metamorphoses of Ovid, in that part where he describes so minutely the contest between the goddess and the Lydian maiden, we read: ..."they both sit down, and stretch the threads of the double warp upon a slight frame; they fix them; a reed divides them; started by their fingers, the shuttle slips and forms from Ovid, and like allusions which occur in Homer. Instance the dreary, interminable task of patient Penelope, by which she sought to evade the importunate horde of suitors; also the work on which "white-armed Andromache" was engaged when news was brought her of the death of "crested Hector;" and the labor with which fairy "Spartan Helen" wrought the combats of the Greeks and Trojans. Nor were all these engaged upon a simple, homely stuff; they wove embroidered webs of great beauty and costliness. It is easy to believe that the lofty principles of early Greek art were able to produce magnificent tapestries. The name of tapestry itself had its origin in the "isles of Greece," from the word tapeta, signifying a carpet. How highly these treasures of the loom were prized in ancient times is seen in the fact that whenever it was desired to make a particularly costly and acceptable present, when there were any sops to be thrown to Cerberus, among other things rugs and mats of tapestry were made to figure conspicuously. Priam, when he sought to conciliate Achilles with gifts by which he hoped to ransom the body of Hector, 'raising the four coffer-lids, Took out twelve robes of state most beautiful, In the Odyssey we see where "Achilles bade the attending men and maids If we were interested to pursue the investiga tion further, we would soon discover that tapestry was in vogue long, long before the Trojan war, and among people in comparison with whom the Greeks were mere parvenus. One Mr. Forster, of Great Britain, after long and careful research, confidently informs us that the Arabians were skilled in the manufacture of silken textures within five hundred years of the Deluge; and, by popular acclamation, tapestry is conceded to be a Saracenic invention, which had its birth in India, "the cradle of the arts." So positive is this opinion, although sustained only by a disconnected chain of eviden e, that the workmen employed in the manufacture of tapestry after its introduction into France, were called "sarazins," or "sarazinois," and at the present day the designation of "Sarrasin carpet" is yet familiar to us. If it surprised us to discover that Helen of Troy might have figured in one of our modern schools of Industrial Art with credit to herself and the institution, what shall we say to the disclosure that far surpassing in skill the Grecian women were the women of Sidon, whose splendid tapestries (wrought with scenes of the chase in superb colors) were the delight of the inhabitants of Babylon, Tyre, Dardes, Miletus, Alexandria, Carthage and Corinth, and were used by them to adorn thrones, couches, sofas, chairs, etc., espe cially at the nuptials of a person of distinction. Catullus tells us of one so employed at a much later period, which represented the whole story of Theseus and Ariadne. They were even used to sleep on, and-horrible dictu!-for horse blankets. Of the carpets-tapestries-of Babylon, we are told in particular that they were brilliant and magnifi cent. At the time when Arrian visited the tomb in which reposed the golden coffin of Cyrus, it was covered with a splendid Babylonian carpet, ornamented with symbolic figures. We can easily recollect the forbidden glories of the "Babylonish garments;" but it seems strange to us that Belshazzar probably sent large invoices of these home manufactures to Nineveh and other trading cities. Yet farther removed from us than the productions of either Tyre or Sidon, is the needlework, the tapestry of ancient Egypt. A reference to certain slighted texts of the Bible, will reveal the fact that Egyptian embroideries had even a more than ordinary share of the popular favor. A woman in Proverbs talks glibly of "painted tapestry brought from Egypt;" so also Ezekiel, who mentions "fine linen with broidered-work from Egypt." It was in the land of the Pharaohs, too, that the Israelites, at the time of the Exodus, learned the trick of embroidery, and made "hangings for the doors of tents, of blue- and purpleand scarlet-, and fine-twined linen wrought with needlework." This is the first instance of tapestried curtains and portières. They continued in use for a long time, but we hear the last of them among the ancient Greeks and Romans, till they were revived in the middle ages of the Christian era. It is supposed that the draperies found in the Jewish tabernacles were wrought with needlework, for it is known that the Hebrews acquired great proficiency in that style of ornamentation on textile fabrics, both with and without the aid of the loom. Of the Egyptian art which they imitated, only one relic, and that of questionable authenticity, remains to us. It consists of a very small rug with a centre containing the figure of a boy in white, with the hieroglyph "child," and a goose above it.. Around this centre are red and blue lines with a background of yellow, relieved by four white figures having red outlines and blue ornamentation, and disposed one on each side of the inat. The border is in red, white and blue hires, with a fancy device projecting from it. The whole design is ungraceful, the execution of course imperfect, and leads us to the conclusion that the reputation of the Egyptians was not founded upon |