ich he had
foreshadowed?

Still, Walter remained silent before the picture, communing with it as
with his own heart and abandoning himself to the spell of evil
influence that the painter had cast upon the features. Gradually his
eyes kindled, while as Elinor watched the increasing wildness of his
face her own assumed a look of terror; and when, at last, he turned
upon her, the resemblance of both to their portraits was complete.

"Our fate is upon us!" howled Walter. "Die!"

Drawing a knife, he sustained her as she was sinking to the ground,
and aimed it at her bosom. In the action and in the look and attitude
of each the painter beheld the figures of his sketch. The picture,
with all its tremendous coloring, was finished.

"Hold, madman!" cried he, sternly.

He had advanced from the door and interposed himself between the
wretched beings with the same sense of power to regulate their destiny
as to alter a scene upon the canvas. He stood like a magician
controlling the phantoms which he had evoked.

"What!" muttered Walter Ludlow as he relapsed from fierce excitement
into sullen gloom. "Does Fate impede its own decree?"

"Wretched lady," said the painter, "did I not warn you?"

"You did," replied Elinor, calmly, as her terror gave place to the
quiet grief which it had disturbed. "But I loved him."

Is there not a deep moral in the tale? Could the result of one or all
our deeds be shadowed forth and set before us, some would call it fate
and hurry onward, others be swept along by their passionate desires,
and none be turned aside by the prophetic pictures.

DAVID SWAN.

A FANTASY.

We can be but partially acquainted even with the events which actually
influence our course through life and our final destiny. There are
innumerable other events, if such they may be called, which come close
upon us, yet pass away without actual results or even betraying their
near approach by the reflection of any light or shadow across our
minds. Could we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes, life would
be too full of hope and fear, exultation or disappointment, to afford
us a single hour of true serenity. This idea may be illustrated by a
page from the secret history of David Swan.

We have nothing to do with David until we find him, at the age of
twenty, on the high road from his native place to the city of Boston,
where his uncle, a small dealer in the grocery line, was to take him
behind the counter. Be it