Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1857-07-09

will live hereafter by feeding other hearts
with the loves lore she has learned from me,
and then Pygmalion-like grow fond of the
images she has herself endowed with SEM
blance of divinity, until they seem to breathe
back the mystery the soul can truly catch
from only one.
How anxious she will be, lest the coroner
shall have discovered any of her notes in my
pocket!
felt chilly as this last reflection crossed
my mind. Partly at thought of the coro-
ner, partly at the idea of Mary being un-
willingly compelled to wear mourning for
me, in case of such disclosure of our en-
gagement. It is provoking thing for a
girl of nineteen to have to go into mourning
for deceased lover, at the beginning of her
second winter in the metropolis
The water, though, with my motionless
position, must have had something to do
with my chilliness. [ see, sir, that you
think that tell my story with great levity;
but indeed, indeed [ should grow delerious
did | venture to hold steadily to the awful
ness of my feelings the greater part of that
night. think, indeed. must have been
most of the time hysterical with horror, for
the vibrating emotions [ have recapitulated
did not pass through my brain even as [
have detailed them.
But as am now become calm in thought,
[ summoned up again some resolution of
action.
[ will begin at the corner (said y and
swim around the whole inclosure. [ will
swim slowly and again feel the sides of the
tank with ny feet. If die [ must, let me
perish at least from well directed though ex-
hausting effort, not sink from mere bootless
weariness in sustaining myself till morning
shall bring relief
The sides of the place seemed to grow
higher as [ now kept my watery course be-
meath them. It was not altogether dead
pull. [ had some variety of emotion in
making my circuit When swan in the
shadow, it looked to me more cheerful be-
yond in the moonlight When [ swan in
the moonlight, [ had the hope of making
some discovery when I should again reach
the shadow. turned several times on my
back to rest just where those wavy lines
would meet. The stars. looked syiciously
tbr1gt1t to me from the bottom OF that wen J;
there was such a company of them; they
were glad in their lustrous revelry; and
they had such space to move in! [ was a
lone, sad to despair, in strange element,
prisonel and a solitary gazer upon their
mocking chorus. And yet there was no
IL IL IL l.o1I
Mon.
| THE CATASTROPHE.
[ turned upou my breast and struck out
almost frantically once more. The stars
were forgotten, the moon, the very world Of
which [ as yet formed part my poor Mary
herself was forgotten. thought only of
the strong man there perishing; Of me in
my lusty manhood, in the sharp vigor Of my
dawning prime, with faculties illimitable,
with senses all alert, battling there with
physical obstacles, which men like myself
had brought together for my undoing. The
Eternal could never have willcd this thing
[ could not and would not perish thus. And
grew strong in insolence of self-trust; and
[ laughed aloud, as dashed the sluggish
water from side to side.
Then came an emotion ofpity for myself
Of wild, wild regret-of sorrow, oh infinite,
for fate so desolate, doom SO dreary, SO
notwithstanding. You may laugh at the
contradiction if you WILL sir, but [ felt that
[ could sacrifice my life on the instant, to
redeem another fellow-creature from such
place of horror, from an end so piteous.-
My soul and my vital spirit seemed in that
desperate moment to be separating; while
one in parting grieved over the deplorable
fate Of the other.
And then [ prayed
I prayed, why or wherefore [ know not.
It was not from fear. It could not have
been in hope. The days of miracles are
passed, and there was natural law by whose
proyidential interposition [ could be saved.
[ did not pray; it prayed of itself, my soul
within me.
Was the calmness that / now felt, torpi-
dity? the torpidity that precedes dissolution,
to the strong swimmer who, sinking from
exhaustion, must at last add bubble to the
wave as he suffocates beneath the element
which now denied his mastery? If it were
so, how fortunate was it that my floating rod
at that moment attracted my attention as it
dashed through the water by me. [ saw on
the instant that fish had entangled HIM
self in the wire-noose. The rod quivered,
I plunged, came again to the surface, and
rippled the water as it shot in arrowy flight
from side to side of the tank. At last, driv-
en- toward the southeast corner of the res
ervoir, the small end seemed to have got
foul somewhere The brazen butt which,
every time the fish sounded! was thrown up
to the moon, now sank by its own weight,
showing that the end must be fast. But the