The hours rolled on. A faint grey light dawned in the east. The clouds broken in heavy masses, rolled rapidly onward obscuring and revealing, as they flew, the few bright stars that appeared far beyond this scene of petty turmoil, shining on, in their own unchanging, never ending harmony. And now the dawn strengthened, and the stars grew pale. The last blue flickering flame, that wandered _ignus-fatuus_ like, over the surface of the dying charcoal, had spent itself; and the wasting lamp looked ghastly in the beams of rising day. A noise was heard at the lonely portal. It was that of forcible entrance, and came harshly over the deep silence that reigned within. Footsteps approached, not such as told the drawing near of a friend, the light, soft step of sympathy with sorrow. No. They heralded force and violence—bond and imprisonment—racks and torture. Three Alguazils of the Inquisition entered the solitary apartment. They came to conduct Nicoli Zampieri to the holy office on a charge of performing or seeking to perform preternatural acts by unholy means—by conjuration and necromancy. Guilty or not guilty, suspicion had fallen upon him, and he had become amenable to the law. Their anticipated victim remained quiet. The Alguazils approached the bed on which he lay. The limbs were stark and stiff—the features immoveable. The Alchymist was dead. Yet the eyes—widely opened, glassy, fixed and staring, gave the startling idea, that the gloomy and reluctant soul had through them strained its last agonising gaze on some opening view—some unimaginable scene in the dread arena of the shadowy world beyond the grave. Silently they turned from the bed of death, for the power of the king of Terrors, thus displayed before them, quelled for a moment their iron nerves. A kneeling figure at the bed’s foot next drew their attention. It was Adolf. They spoke to him, but he answered not: they shook him, but the form immobile, gave no sign of warmth or elasticity. One of the men turned aside the rich curls that clustered above the boy’s fair brow, and gently raised his head. It was cold and pale. The suffering spirit of the young and innocent Adolf, had winged its way to a happier world. * * * * * THE CIRCASSIAN BRIDE. BY ESTHER WETHERALD. “She walks in beauty, like the nights Of cloudless climes and starry skies.” _Byron._ Nerinda was the daughter of a shepherd, who dwelt in one of the charming portions of Circassia. If beauty was a blessing, Nerinda was blessed beyond the ordinary lot of mortals, for the fame of her loveliness had extended through the neighboring vallies, and at the early age of fourteen her hand had been sought by many, with an earnestness which showed her parents what a treasure they possessed in their eldest born. But no one had been able to obtain her.