"What!" cried I, when the power of articulation returned; "was that the good advice?" "Ay, sir,--ay! that was all the comfort our poor dear got from her _lover_; she asked him for no more. She didn't upbraid him. He had dealt her death-blow, and she followed his advice; she came to her old nurse, sir,--God be praised!--and I and David closed her precious eyes for ever, after they had lingered, in their last dim sight, on the lifeless image of him, whose name, with her forgiveness, and prayer to Heaven for his happiness, were the last words upon her sweet, sweet lips!" "And if a special hand is not upraised to strew his path of life with tenfold the sharp pangs that he employed to drive his victim to an early grave," cried I, "it can only be that it has already crushed the monster into death." My heart was faint and sick at the recital I had heard. I returned to my inn; and all that night--for it was in vain that I attempted to sleep--I mused upon this awful dispensation of the wrath of Heaven, and the dread severity with which the wisdom of vindictive Providence had stricken the transgression of poor little Harri! EUGENIUS. THE WHITE MAN'S DEVIL-HOUSE. A FRAGMENT. BY F. HARRISON RANKIN. "There is a magic in the craft." Exoterics surmise it to consist in "winks and nods," proverbially of equal inspiration to steeds labouring under the dispensation of _gutta serena_. Mesmer's Animal Magnetism was nothing to the invisible "tractors." Ticklings of the palm have been surmised; talismanic numbers have been hinted at; sounds inaudible have been suggested; together with certain "melodious twangs," awakening pineal sympathy. Mrs. Veal's ghost, from De Foe's autopsy of the apparition, evidently held no less a grade in the scale of shadowy society than that of Master Mason. John Locke, the philosopher, subsequently one of the fraternity, opined that the art embraced sorcery, alchemy, the transmutation of essences and of metals, together with similar common-place desiderata. Whatever the nature of the spell, its sway is wide. Affinity of feeling generated by it runs round the world. It may be found in the land of the Chinese, of the Arab, the Red Indian, and the wild Tartar; in the frozen circle, habitat of all seals excepting Solomon's, and in the burning desert, "Terra domibus negata." Our story relates to the last pleasant locality. Upon the windward coast of Africa, in a situation calculated to warm the coolest temperament, stands a European settlement,--a pimple of civilization upon the fiery face of a barbarous continent. "Once upon a time" a lodge had existed there. Its members had ceased to melt, having gradually melted away; for the constant flux and reflux of white residents, the brief sojourn of many, and the death of an appropriate portion, rapidly vary the population of the little colony. After a lapse of years, however, it was not long since determined that the lodge should be re-opened.