and sweet emotions. Restless as a bird but lately caught, and unaccustomed to its cage, she fluttered about her studio, wondering that it should seem to her like a new world into which she had never before entered.

She threw herself upon a sofa and tried to sleep, but in vain; her restlessness and agitation constantly increased, until at last the necessity of occupying herself did for her what solitude and meditation had failed to do-restored her to repose. A knock summoned her to the door, and she was surprised to receive a quantity of the rarest and most exquisite flowers. Bouquets, large and small, baskets embedded in moss, and arranged with matchless taste, and, best of all, an immense basketful of roses, heliotrope, lilies of the valley, sweet violets-her favorite flowers; who had divined them ?-flung together in careless profusion, and awaiting to be arranged by her own hands. Trembling with delight, she proceeded to adorn her studio until it looked like a bower in a newly discovered garden of Eden, and had scarcely completed her pleasant task when the flowers were followed by a costly collation, as perfect in its way as they had been in theirs. Delicious fruits, candies, ices, wines, all the choicest dainties that earth affords, a banquet that Keats himself would have delighted to celebrate, was spread forth invitingly to her view, and she hastened to arrange it with as much taste as she could command, upon a table in a corner of the room opposite the stage. A studio is the only true Aladdin's palace; it always contains space enough, whatever emergency may arise, and can be transformed at will

into any use. The supper-table she adorned with flowers, and had just placed a screen before it, when a third messenger arrived, bringing stage decorations, and last, but not of the least importance, the costume of the Princess Argiope.

It was six o'clock. Adèle hastened to make her toilette, and had scarcely completed it, when Paul Clare knocked at the door, and entered, accompanied

by the little Mercury, already known to the mistress of the establishment, transformed into a Moorish page. Nothing had been forgotten. The page, painted like a young Othello, and dressed with fantastic magnificence, was to play an important part in the evening's festivity, -that of door-keeper and stage supernumerary. Mr. Clare himself he had not proceeded directly from the street, but from the adjoining studio-wore a green wreath and gorgeous crimson robe, in which he looked the embodiment of a visionary Orpheus. He uttered an exclamation of delight at the appearance of the studio, and then hastened-there was really not a moment to be lost-to set the stage, arrange the lights, and initiate the page in the mysteries of his two roles; a performance that Adèle witnessed with bursts of laughter that were exceedingly unbecoming to a person of her high rank and distressed situation.

Adèle wore a well-imagined ancient Greek costume of white satin, richly embroidered with gold, with slippers of the same material similarly decorated. A jewelled girdle clasped her waist, and at her side was a superb dagger, emblem of royalty. Her long dark hair hung in heavy braids almost to her feet. Her head was adorned with bands of pearls, clasped with a flashing jewel that rested upon her brow. Pearls slumbered upon the whiteness of her arms and neck, and over all was cast an exquisite veil, spangled with silver. She looked so beautiful in her strange attire, that when she had glanced at herself in a mirror, after completing her toilette, she had been terrified, so vividly was she impressed with the idea that she was gazing not upon herself, but upon another being. Her eyes were flashing like stars, the flush in her cheeks was soft and deep and warm as the blush of the delicate veined leaf hidden in the bosom of the rose, and in every movement was a subtle, indefinable grace. She imagined that an unknown spirit was gazing at her from her own eyes, was quivering in her pulses, and swaying her movements, and she was thankful when Mr.

Clare arrived, to restore her, by his presence, to a consciousness of her own identity.

Mr. Clare did not pay Adèle a single compliment. He found her so beautiful that he was overpowered, and could not speak.

"What if Fanny should be prevented from coming, and should disappoint us," he said, suddenly, when he had completed all the scenic effects that he desired to produce.

"Do not fear. Take my word for it, she will be here upon the stroke of the clock."

"We should be ready to receive her then immediately. I wish Prince Zariades would favor us with his presence; I am eager to have him see you." And this was the only reference that he made to Adele's appearance.

The Prince appeared the moment after he had ceased to speak, at a quarter to eight, and his magnificence atoned for the brief delay. He was dressed in a complete suit of glittering armor, with an open helmet, that showed his face, and a long white plume floating gracefully over his shoulder. When he saw Adèle, lightnings flashed from his eyes, which had reminded Mrs. Vane of a sleeping thunder-cloud. And now a new surprise awaited her. Sweet, low strains of music, softened and etherealized by dividing walls, crept slowly through the room, mingling with the odor of the flowers with which the atmosphere was deliciously penetrated, and the soft poetic radiance pervading and illumining the scene. "What is it?" Adèle cried in breathless delight; but the sweet strains scarcely needed an explanation. A band of musicians had been placed in the adjoining studio, and melody was to be a part of the evening's entertainment. Mr. Mortimer's preparations for the tableau proved, indeed, that he was an artist in taste, although not by profession, and a prince in nature, although without the encumbrance of a title.

Prince Zariades had brought in his hand the jewelled goblet that he was himself to receive. Mr. Clare filled it

with wine, and presented it to the Princess Argiope. The tableau was arranged, and scarcely had he pronounced it perfect, when a loud, impatient rap at the door resounded through the room.

The curtain fell. Orpheus seized a book, and assumed an imposingly theatrical attitude. The page threw open the door, and bowing to the ground with extravagant gesticulations, ushered in Mrs. Vane.

"Adèle! For heaven's sake, what is the meaning of all this mystery? Paul! What, have you, too, entered into a conspiracy against me? You ridiculous monster! where is Adèle ?"

Mr. Clare deigned no other reply to this invocation than that of placing his finger upon his lips, in order to command Fanny's silence. Then he opened his book and read the description of the meeting of Prince Zariades and the Princess Argiope:

"Sudden those eyes took light, and joy, and soul, Sudden from neck to temples flushed the rose, And with quick, gliding steps,

And the strange looks of one who walks in slumber,

The

This was the scene to be depicted. As Orpheus read the concluding words of the extract, he lifted his hand. music swelled to a fuller cadence, the flowers seemed to emit a deeper breath of passionate fragrance, and the young Moor, at the appointed signal, drew the curtains from the mimic stage. The tableau represented Prince Zariades in the very act of taking the goblet from the hand of the Princess. But, ah! How to describe the sudden glory of the maiden's face! How to describe the tender passion of the youthful warrior

awe, the

kneeling at her feet; the ecstacy with which he gazed and beheld the vision whom he had worshipped in a dream, living before him in human form !

"It is true, then," Mrs. Vane exclaimed with a passionate inhalation of delight, quite subdued from her usual loquacity. "Fairy-land still exists, and it is possible to behold our dreams, visibly embodied in the divine perfection of reality."

Not until the curtain had fallen, and had been withdrawn again, and yet for a third time, did she recover from her surprise sufficiently to be able to ask an explanation of the apparent miracle. At this the actors left the stage, and Adèle introduced Prince Zariades to the gifted mortal who had promised to endow him with immortality, with a solemnity suited to so important an occasion. It was impossible, however, to veil facts any longer with a mask of mythology. Mrs. Vane demanded to know what had occurred, and when the history of the day was related to her, knew not whether to laugh or to weep, and in fact did a little of both, while the entire party, sympathizing with her agitation, began congratulating each other wildly and at random, as if they were devoted friends who had just escaped from some terrible danger; or, still better, who had just achieved some immemorial triumph, that was about to prove the salvation of the entire race, in a manner that was perfectly senseless and bewildering.

Finally tranquillity was restored.

"And now," Mr. Clare said, "since business is over, I presume we may have a little rest and enjoyment. However you may feel, Fanny, I can assure you that we, who have been working for your benefit, need refreshment."

"Busi

"Not yet," Fanny answered. ness is not over! I must make a sketch for my picture at this very moment. I could not live another hour without accomplishing it."

The tableau was rearranged, and Mrs. Vane proceeded to draw from life the first design of her great picture.

Perfect silence prevailed, interrupted only by low vibrations of music sighing fitfully through the apartment. Mr. Clare reclined upon a sofa, his fair head propped up upon his arm, while he gazed enraptured upon Fanny, as she sat with hurried fingers sweeping the canvas, and the fire of inspiration playing about her brow. Adèle and Mr. Mortimer were constrained by their position to gaze into each other's eyes.

The sketch was completed with marvellous rapidity, and Adèle and Mr. Clare both pronounced it a brilliant success-the best thing by far that Mrs. Vane had done. Every touch of her pencil had been electrical. Evidently the inspiration of the scene had entered into her soul.

All present could congratulate themselves upon having contributed to this brilliant production, and they did not soon become weary of admiring it, but at last it was laid aside. Adèle, removing a screen, displayed her concealed banquet, and the weary artists hastened to seck the refreshment which their exertions in the cause of art had prepared them to appreciate. The rest of the evening sped away as if by magic. The four friends, as they now considered themselves, were in the happiest mood for social enjoyment. Brilliant wit sparkled brightly over the profounder current of thought and sentiment which is set in movement then only, when gifted and congenial spirits meet together under the happiest auspices; nor did they separate without determining that the tableau-party should be the first of a succession of similar reunions.

This intention for a time was faithfully carried out, but the tableau-party was productive of far more important consequences. All who had taken part in it, looked back upon this evening, in after-years, as to the commencement of their true life. It need scarcely be said that Adèle and Mr. Mortimer had committed the indiscretion of falling desperately in love at first sight. If not engaged on the very evening of the day

"A WORD fitly spoken "-a happy expression-has a charm for even the rudest peoples; and polished nations early discover in their talk and in their books a favoritism in the use of words possessing suggestive qualities entirely independent of their philological definitions. The instinct that prompts this use is probably one of the sources of language itself. The simpler of these words are onomatopes or imitations of sounds, requiring little art,-and are beneath the dignity of scientific classification. (Buzz, hiss, whiz, splash, slush, hum, wheeze, sneeze, roar, gurgle, jingle, are more or less onomatopical.) But the meagre and savage art which produced these simple imitations was precursory and prophetic of a later and more delicate art in the use of a complex and ever-varying suggestiveness, which gives voice to the same instinct in the presence of all the facts and fancies which this brightest age remembers and conceives, a suggestiveness that is made to reach beyond mere sounds to the finest modes and qualities of surface, distance, motion, lustre, fibre, density, concentration, humor, solemnity, contempt, a suggestiveness whose analysis would be found taking all the words to pieces, and fitting to each letter or sound a peculiar character which it has won out of all the observed phenomena of life. These characters, which are beyond the compass of all reputed science-which, indeed, are known only in the poet's art-this article will show the ambition to indicate, though it may not define.

But before testing upon the consciousness of the reader my intuition of the individual qualifications of the letters, I desire to restrict his anticipation by warning him of the delicacy of the differences he will be called to appreciate, of the breadth of grasp from which I conceive the roots of these flowers of thought to suck in the juices

which enliven their odors and their hues, and of the apparent hopelessness of any one man's efforts to resolve, determine, and classify in full the fluctuant, evanescent, whimsical effects with which we shall have to do.

These characters of the letters or sounds, as I conceive them, are accidental-not generic, or identical in all languages and among all peoples. This is a study of vernaculars. The effects I refer to are so thin and fine that the gross discrepancies of races overbear them. They are as sensitive and mercurial as poetry itself. For all purposes of this essay, a Scotchman talking in his throat and a Frenchman puttering with the tips of his lips are as dissimilar as a horse and an ass. Neither can be a popular wit in the language of the other; neither has facial muscles for the humor of the other's dialect. Any account of the wonderful luxuriance of the growth of languages (of which there is a fabulous number) requires the consideration of differences even less than theirs. A little obstruction is said to turn the tide of trade in a street, but a less one will vary the language of a nation. Languages are disposed to lie upon the world in groups which resemble one another; but if we will undertake to prove the character or effect of a sound identical in several dialects (even of the same group), we shall reduce its vernacular significance as we increase its general applicability. A verbal root may be traced with care until similar shades of meaning shall be found in Visigothic, Almannic, Saxon, Scandinavian, and Slavonic; but if the student should then begin to fancy that he has found a generic principle of language, let him follow the same sound into Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic, and Arabic, and he will conclude that nine tenths of any original language sprang out of the ground whereon it was first spoken, and from roots too shallow to