almost sad glances. They saw that everything was not right, that something out of the common way, that something very sad had happened to her.

When the family separated for the evening, Hertha took her sisters with her into her room, seated herself, and putting an arm round each of them, said

"Little ones, I must go a journey which will require a week, perhaps two, and you must, in the mean time, manage the house, and see that everything is comfortable for рара and aunt."

"Early in the morning you, Maria, must give this letter to papa, and afterwards you must read the papers to him in my stead. Martha must in the mean time undertake the housekeeping. Here are the keys of the larder, the cellar, and the store-room, and there the housekeeping money for the remainder of the month. Let me see, my little Martha, that you can attend to this as well as you have already begun, as my adjutant. Endeavour that I may be able, on my return, to praise you both. Whatever you can think of as best for the comfort of papa and aunt, that do. You must also think of me, my dear children, and pray God for me, and I will-I will write to you, and tell you the I shall return, and perhaps I may be back expect. In any case I will write to you."

The young girls began to weep.

"What has happened?" asked they;

day when before you

you are so

pale, Hertha? And your hands are so cold. Something

distressing has happened!"

"Yes; but don't ask any more, now.

Some time,

perhaps, I may be able to tell you-but now, good night, little sisters; good night!"

She clasped them in her arms, kissed them, and desired them to go to their own room. But they clung sorrowfully round her neck.

"Do not forsake us!" besought they, weeping,

have nobody to cling to and look up to but you. You are our only support, and the only joy we have in the world. Don't leave us!"

"No, no, never!" said Hertha, with decision, "never, with my soul and my heart; and if I go away for a little while, it is only that I may be able all the more calmly to stay with you, my sisters, my darlings!"

But Hertha could not separate herself from them until they had covered her with their caresses and tears.

"Sister-if there is a word which is pleasant to me. to hear-pleasanter than the sweetest music, it is that word, sister!" said on one occasion to me a mother, with two separate families of daughters, whom she had taught to speak that word of love.

Happy the home where the name "sister" is spoken in love and in joy. Heaven's innocence and the communion of angels live and bloom there in sweet images, the growth of an inspiration which, in scarcely any other relationship, is so pure, so free, and so refreshing. No attachment is at the same time so tender and so joyous, so productive of innocent mirth, of fresh, everyoung laughter, and at the same time so affluent of of heartfelt love, as that between sisters.

peace,

But unhappy the home where the word "sister" is spoken in bitterness by bitter hearts! There lives the rust which "eats into the heart," and there the intercourse which makes life wormwood, and " embitters the well-springs of earth." Sisters, who live together in this spirit, take courage and separate!

Sisters, who during a heavenly communion afforded me heavenly joys, and bitter sorrow only when Heaven took you from me; beloved sisters, it is of you that I think when I speak of the sweetest and most purifying sentiment in the world, that which binds sister to sister, and enables, through this love, much to be borne and much to be overcome.

When Martha and Maria were together in their little chamber, they gave for a while free vent to their tears, as well as to conjectures which did not afford them any light. Finally they endeavoured to console themselves with thinking what they should do in the house during Hertha's absence, and which would give her pleasure on her return. And these little plans for the future cast a roseate glow over the increasing darkness of evening.

Hertha on her part had felt in her sisters' embrace the renewal of a firm resolve to live for them; but for that purpose, precisely for that purpose, must she now leave them for a little time; she felt that she must do it.

Reader! either by thy own means, or by means of another, has a misfortune happened to thee, which thou knowest to be irremediable; which has struck thee with a kind of panic terror, and cast a fearful burden upon thy breast, and taken away, as it were, thy breath, and dimmed thy sight-so that it seems to thee as if thou couldst never more be happy, never more breathe freelythen thou wilt understand what Hertha felt. If thou dost not die of this blow, or become insane,-as sometimes happens, then will a strange unrest take possession of thee, and thou wilt feel that in order to escape the ravenous beast which threatens to tear thee to pieces,— the night which seems as if it would swallow thee up,that thou must fly, fly away from the time and the place, away from thyself, if possible,-away from the horrible oppression which weighs upon thee, from that which is there, as a corpse, a ghost before thine eyes, and which prevents thee from thinking or feeling aright, by the horror of its silent, sorrowful presence. And if thou so feelest, oh, well for thee if thou canst take wings and fly away from the time and from the place! It is indeed merely an earthly, physical means; but it is nevertheless. a little help to obtain breathing room, and to give the soul time and power to reflect upon itself, and upon that

The

which has happened. Travel diverts the mind. black demon which has eaten into our hearts is lulled to sleep by it. We do not incessantly feel him stabbing and gnawing, and we are able to gain strength to combat with him; yet not alone from travelling and action.

In order to escape from the torturing pang which had overcome her, and to avoid the visits and proximity of Yngve, and to gain time for reflection on the line of conduct which she ought to pursue with regard to him,-in order to endeavour, from her own soul's depths, to obtain some light in the darkness which now surrounded herself and him, Hertha felt that she must go away for a time,whither, was a matter of indifference to her-only away, away from him.

Through the whole night she paced to and fro in her chamber, restless and sleepless. Sometimes she stood by the window and looked up to heaven, but without prayer, and almost without thought, except that dark abyss of doubt which had so long lain like a Nidhögg at the root of her soul, and which now again lifted up his head through the covering of flowers which had latterly been placed there. The stars glittered brilliantly and coldly, and darkness overspread the earth.

At daybreak she dressed herself for her journey; took a little travelling-bag which contained some necessary articles of clothing, together with a small sum of money, the gift of her father, and with this in her hand set out on the way to the harbour, which was between one and two miles distant from her home.

Like Rudolph some months before, with the sense of a vast unhappiness in her soul, she walked solitary along the dreary high road to seek for rest somewhere, a long way from home. "Poor Rudolph!" sighed Hertha, involuntarily. She felt a reproach of conscience for having almost forgotten him (although she had written to him. and he to her more than once since his flight), for the

feelings and thoughts which had during the last few weeks engrossed her whole soul; and she suddenly took the resolution of visiting him at Copenhagen.

"I will see him!" thought she; "I can understand him better than formerly, and that will help him to bear his unfortunate life!"

And perhaps also help myself, whispered a low voice in Hertha's soul. There was now an object in her journey beyond herself, and this object shone like a little star on her gloomy path. It gleamed above her in the dark heaven; it lighted and guided her steps.

There is nothing which, for energetic and at the same time truly feminine characters, is so sustaining under their own calamity, or which is endowed with so great a power of compensation, both for soul and mind, as the being able to comfort and support another-above all, a friend. -By the thought of this the soul holds itself fast, as by an anchor, while the storm rages and the waves heave aloft, she feels her own danger less ;-it may be that she forgets it.

When Hertha reached the harbour she found one of the steam-boats just leaving for the western coast, and its dark column of smoke circling aloft towards the clear blue heaven. As soon as she was on board, the plank was drawn to shore.

THE JOURNEY:

GIANTS AND FAIRIES OF LIGHT.

WHAT a poem is that gigantic work in Sweden, which unites the Baltic with the Cattegat, and which we call the Götha Canal, the "blue ribbon of Sweden;" what a poem, from its history and natural scenery, the grandeur of its design and execution, its great or delightful memories!