sparingly, as the lights are kindled in the candelabra of
decaying palaces where the heirs of dethroned monarchs are dying out; the
red and white clovers, the broad, flat leaves of the plantain,--"the
white man's foot," as the Indians called it,--the wiry, jointed stems of
that iron creeping plant which we call "knot-grass," and which loves its
life so dearly that it is next to impossible to murder it with a hoe, as
it clings to the cracks of the pavement;--all these plants, and many
more, she wove into her fanciful garlands and borders.--On one of the
pages were some musical notes. I touched them from curiosity on a piano
belonging to one of our boarders. Strange! There are passages that I
have heard before, plaintive, full of some hidden meaning, as if they
were gasping for words to interpret them. She must have heard the
strains that have so excited my curiosity, coming from my neighbor's
chamber. The illuminated border she had traced round the page that held
these notes took the place of the words they seemed to be aching for.
Above, a long monotonous sweep of waves, leaden-hued, anxious and jaded
and sullen, if you can imagine such an expression in water. On one side
an Alpine needle, as it were, of black basalt, girdled with snow. On the
other a threaded waterfall. The red morning-tint that shone in the drops
had a strange look,--one would say the cliff was bleeding;--perhaps she
did not mean it. Below, a stretch of sand, and a solitary bird of prey,
with his wings spread over some unseen object.--And on the very next page
a procession wound along, after the fashion of that on the title-page of
Fuller's "Holy War," in which I recognized without difficulty every
boarder at our table in all the glory of the most resplendent
caricature--three only excepted,--the Little Gentleman, myself, and one
other.

I confess I did expect to see something that would remind me of the
girl's little deformed neighbor, if not portraits of him.--There is a
left arm again, though;--no,--that is from the "Fighting Gladiator," the
"Jeune Heros combattant" of the Louvre;--there is the broad ring of the
shield. From a cast, doubtless. [The separate casts of the
"Gladiator's" arm look immense; but in its place the limb looks light,
almost slender,--such is the perfection of that miraculous marble. I
never felt as if I touched the life of the old Greeks until I looked on
that statue.]--Here is something very odd, to be sure. An Ed