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1856.]

The Last House in C Street.

to her absence in their happy wedded life. He was, like most men, glad to blame anybody but himself, and the whole day, and the next, was cross at intervals with both Edmond and me; but we bore it-and patiently.

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It will be all right when we get him to the theatre. He has no real cause for anxiety about her. What a dear woman she is, and a precious -your mother, Dorothy!'

I rejoiced to hear my lover speak thus, and thought there hardly ever was young gentlewoman so blessed as I.

'We went to the play. Ah, you know nothing of what a play is, now-a-days. You never saw John Kemble and Mrs. Siddons. Though in dresses and shows it was far inferior to the Hamlet you took me to see last week, my dear-and though I perfectly well remember being on the point of laughing when in the most solemn scene, it became clearly evident that the Ghost had been drinking. Strangely enough, no after events connected therewith-nothing subsequent ever drove from my mind the vivid impression of this my first play. Strange, also, that the play should have been Hamlet. Do you think that Shakspeare believed in - in what people call' ghosts'?'

I could not say; but I thought Mrs. MacArthur's ghost very long in coming.

dear-don't; do any

'Don't, my thing but laugh at it.'

She was visibly affected, and it was not without an effort that she proceeded in her story.

'I wish you to understand exactly my position that night-a young girl, her head full of the enchantment of the stage-her heart of something not less engrossing. Mr. Everest had supped with us, leaving us both in the best of spirits; indeed my father had gone to bed, laughing heartily at the remembrance of the antics of Mr. Grimaldi, which had almost obliterated the Queen and Hamlet from his memory, on which the ridiculous always took a far stronger hold than the awful or sublime.

'I was sitting-let me see-at the window, chatting with my maid Patty, who was brushing the powder

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out of my hair. The window was open half-way, and looking out on the Thames; and the summer night being very warm and starry, made it almost like sitting out of doors. There was none of the awe given by the solitude of a midnight closed room, when every sound is magnified, and every shadow seems alive.

'As I said, we had been chatting and laughing; for Patty and I were both very young, and she had a sweetheart, too. She, like every one of our household, was a warm admirer of Mr. Everest. I had just been half scolding, half smiling at her praises of him, when St. Paul's great clock came booming over the silent river.

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Mother will have been in bed an hour ago,' said I, with a little self-reproach at not having thought of her till now.

'The next minute my maid and I both started up with a simultaneous exclamation.

Did you hear that?'

Yes, a bat flying against the window.'"

But the lattices are open, Mistress Dorothy.'

So they were; and there was no bird or bat or living thing aboutonly the quiet summer night, the river, and the stars.

"I be certain sure I heard it. And I think it was like-just a bit like somebody tapping.'

"Nonsense, Patty! But it had struck me thus-though I said it was a bat. It was exactly like the sound of fingers against a panevery soft, gentle fingers, such as, in passing into her flower-garden, my mother used often to tap outside the school-room cascment at home.

"I wonder, did father hear anything. It-the bird, you know, Patty-might have flown at his window, too?'

"Oh, Mistress Dorothy!' Patty would not be deceived. I gave her the brush to finish my hair, but her hand shook too much. I shut the window, and we both sat down facing it.

'At that minute, distinct, clear,

and unmistakeable, like a person giving a summons in passing by, we heard once more the tapping on the pane. But nothing was seen; not a single shadow came between us and the open air, the bright starlight.

Startled I was, and awed, but I was not frightened. The sound gave me even an inexplicable delight. But I had hardly time to recognise my feelings, still less to analyse them, when a loud cry came from my father's room.

Dolly, Dolly!'

'Now my mother and I had both

one name, but he always gave her the old-fashioned pet name,-I was invariably Dorothy. Still I did not pause to think, but ran to his locked door, and answered.

'It was a long time before he took any notice, though I heard him talking to himself, and moaning. He was subject to bad dreams, especially before his attacks of gout. So my first alarm lightened. I stood listening, knocking at intervals, until at last he replied.

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What do'ee want, child?'

Is anything the matter, father?'
Nothing. Go to thy bed, Doro-

Did you not call? want any one?'

Do you

"Not thee. O Dolly, my poor Dolly,'-and he seemed to be almost sobbing, Why did I let thee leave me!'

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Father, you are not going to be ill? It is not the gout, is it?' (for that was the time when he wanted my mother most, and indeed, when he was wholly unmanageable by any one but her.)

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Go away. Get to thy bed, girl; I don't want 'ee.'

I thought he was angry with me for having been in some sort the cause of our delay, and retired very miserable. Patty and I sat up a good while longer, discussing the dreary prospect of my father's having a fit of the gout here in London lodgings, with only us to nurse him, and my mother away. Our alarm was so great that we quite forgot the curious circumstance which had first attracted us, till Patty spoke up, from her bed on the floor.

"I hope master beant going to

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"Not till the evening coach starts,' I cried, alarmed. We can't, you know ?'

I'll take a post-chaise, then. We must be off in an hour.'

'An hour! The cruel pain of parting-(my dear, I believe I used to feel things keenly when I was young)-shot through me-through and through. A single hour, and I should have said good-bye to Edmond-one of those heart-breaking farewells when we seem to leave half of our poor young life behind us, forgetting that the only real parting is when there is no love left to part from. A few years, and I wondered how I could have crept away and wept in such intolerable agony at the mere bidding good-bye to Edmond-Edmond, who loved

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1856.]

The Last House in C― Street.

hope. He made things so clear always; he was a man of much brighter parts than my father, and had great influence over him.

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Dorothy,' he whispered, help me to persuade the Doctor. It is so little time I beg for, only a few hours; and before so long a parting.' Ay, longer than he thought, or I.

Children,' cried my father at last, you are a couple of fools. Wait till you have been married twenty years. I must go to my Dolly. I know there is something amiss at home.'

'I should have felt alarmed, but I saw Mr. Everest smile; and besides, I was yet glowing under his fond look, as my father spoke of our being married twenty years.'

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Father, you have surely no reason for thinking this? If you have, tell us.'

My father just lifted his head, and looked me wofully in the face. "Dorothy, last night, as sure as I see you now, , I saw your mother.'

Is that all?' cried Mr. Everest, laughing; why, my good sir, of course you did; you were dreaming.'

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I had not gone to sleep.' How did you see her?' "Coming into the room just as she used to do in the bedroom at home, with the candle in her hand and the baby asleep on her arm.

Did she speak?' asked Mr. Everest, with another and rather satirical smile; 'remember, you saw Hamlet last night. Indeed, sir-indeed, Dorothy-it was a mere dream. I do not believe in ghosts; it would be an insult to common sense, to human wisdomnay, even to Divinity itself.'

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Edmond spoke so earnestly, so justly, so affectionately, that perforce I agreed; and even my father became to feel rather ashamed of his own weakness. He, a physician, the head of a family, to yield to a mere superstitious fancy, springing probably from a hot supper and an over-excited brain! To the same cause Mr. Everest attributed the other incident, which somewhat hesitatingly I told him.

"Dear, it was a bird; nothing but a bird. One flew in at my window last spring; it had hurt itself, and I kept it, and nursed it,

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and petted it. It was such a pretty, gentle little thing, it put me in mind of Dorothy.'

Did it ?' said I.

"And at last it got well and flew away.'

Ah! that was not like Dorothy.' Thus, my father being persuaded, it was not hard to persuade me. We settled to remain till evening. Edmond and I, with my maid Patty, went about together, chiefly in Mr. West's Gallery, and in the quiet shade of our favourite Temple Gardens. And if for those four stolen hours, and the sweetness in them, I afterwards suffered untold remorse and bitterness, I have entirely forgiven myself, as I know my dear mother would have forgiven me, long ago.'

Mrs. MacArthur stopped, wiped her eyes, and then continuedspeaking more in the matter-of-fact way that old people speak than she had been lately doing.

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'Well, my dear, where was I?' In the Temple Gardens.' 'Yes, yes. Well, we came home to dinner. My father always enjoyed his dinner, and his nap afterwards; he bad nearly recovered himself now only looked tired from loss of rest. Edmond and I sat in the window, watching the barges and wherries down the Thames; there were no steam-boats then, you know.

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"Dolly, my Dolly!' Without another word my father rushed away without his hat, leaped into the post-chaise that was waiting, and drove off.

Edmond!' I gasped.

"My poor little girl-my own Dorothy!

By the tenderness of his embrace, not lover-like, but brotherlike-by his tears, for I could feel them on my neck-I knew, as well as if he had told me, that I should never see my dear mother any more.'

'She had died in childbirth,' continued the old lady after a long pause- died at night, at the very hour and minute when I had heard the tapping on the window-pane, and my father had thought he saw her coming into his room with a baby on her arm.'

Was the baby dead, too?' They thought so then, but it afterwards revived.'

'What a strange story!'

'I do not ask you to believe in it. How and why and what it was I cannot tell; I only know that it assuredly was so.'

And Mr. Everest ?' I inquired, after some hesitation.

The old lady shook her head. 'Ah, my dear, you will soon learn

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PROTESTANTISM FROM A ROMAN-CATHOLIC
POINT OF VIEW.

Oh, wad the gods the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as ithers see us!

THE
HE possession of such a gift as

the one here desired by Burns, would be productive, we imagine, of more annoyance than profit, for we should find it difficult to believe that the light in which others view us could possibly show our features more truly and faithfully than that by which we see ourselves. None of us Protestants, for instance, would be ready to allow that we are really as black as Dr. Giovanni Perrone has thought fit to paint us in his Cattechismo interno al Protestantesimo, an account of which we propose to lay before our readers.

**

In the preface to his little volume, Dr. Perrone in forms his Italian countrymen that it is a notorious fact, that for the last few years an active and unscrupulous faction has sought to introduce Protestantism into their beautiful and catholic peninsula. This faction, it appears, spares no expense, either in money or books, for the purpose of establishing its abominable system, never hesitating to practise all sorts of frauds with a view to secure propagation of it. Not, the just and charitable divine affirms, that these men have any faith in the so-called form of religion

*Cattechismo interno al Protestantesimo ad uso del popolo. Per Giovanni Perrone, D.C., D.G. Seconda Edizione Milanese. Milan. 1855.

1856.]

Dr. Peronne's Definition of Protestantism.

which they profess, for they have none, and all their actions spring from nothing else but the violent hatred which they bear towards the only true religion. Sad therefore it is to think, and deeply Dr. Perrone laments it, that so many of his fellowcountrymen should have been seduced and entangled by the formulas, or more properly speaking the sophisms, of which the suspicious persons in question make use to gain proselytes. In the belief, however, that very few are aware of the abysses into which Italy would be thrown if Protestantism were to prevail, and that they do not even know what that so-vaunted system is, further than that it is a negation of Catholicism, he has undertaken to expose the nature, origin, and effects of Protestantism-to point out the evil deeds of which its apostles are guilty, the aim they have in view, and the miserable end to which their system leads many unhappy people in the present life, as well as in the world to come. Moreover, that his readers may be able to place full reliance in his statements, he assures them he will bring forward nothing which cannot be proved; and furthermore, he affirms that he has been induced to devote himself to the work solely through love of that Divine religion which it will be his aim always to defend. In conclusion, he trusts that what he has written may be useful to whoever is not obstinately determined to shut his eyes to the light of truth. As for those miserable men who are impious by profession, alias Protestants, nothing, he fears, that he or any one else could say would be of any avail, determined as they are to cast themselves into the abyss of perdition, and to draw as many others after them as they can.

After having treated his readers to this pleasant little exordium, Dr. Perrone plunges in medias res, and commences his Catechism by making his pupil inquire what the word Protestantism signifies, and the master, nothing loth to gratify so laudable a curiosity, gives the usual Romancatholic definition of the word, telling him that it signifies the rebellion of all the modern sects against the Catholic Church. As to the doc

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trines of Protestantism, these are, he says, most difficult of determination, since they change with every change of the moon, every man being permitted to interpret the Bible according to his own fashion. Hence the multiplicity of sects into which Protestants are split; though at the same time, none of them are bound by the particular formula they profess, and the only thing they have in common is that they all unite in hating and excommunicating each other. Thus these various sects resemble a Babel; and it would be well, he continues, if Protestantism were nothing worse than this; but the fact is, that it professes doctrines horrible in theory and immoral in practice-doctrines which are an outrage against both God and man, injurious to society, and contrary to good sense and modesty. Protestants, as well as Dr. Perrone's pupil, will be desirous to know where the doctrines are to be found which sanction such enormities; and if they refer to the learned Doctor, he will triumphantly point out to them certain exceptional doctrines in the works of Luther, Calvin, Zwingle, and others of the Reformers-doctrines which he must very well know are repudiated by every one of the sects whom he represents as holding them up to the present day. It is no wonder, after listening to such statements, the wondering pupil should ask how it was that, professing such horrible doctrines, the Reformers ever gained any followers? Always ready with an answer, Dr. Perrone replies that nothing was easier, appealing as they did, by means of these very doctrines, to all the passions of man, more especially to his cupidity and pride. Thus all who wished to indulge their passions speedily enrolled themselves in the ranks of their disciples; and as it was in times past, so it is now, for all those who forsake Catholicism and embrace Protestantism are invariably wicked men. He then enters into a description of the characters of the early Reformers, making out that they were all of them apostate monks, hypocrites, tyrants, dissolute wretches, perjured creatures, and disseminators of the most infamous doctrines-men who

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