“I could restrain myself no longer, and rushed forward, exclaiming, ‘Gerald, my love, my husband! behold me here, loving thee, forgiving thee, even as when for thy sake, I left thy country and thy home!’ I sunk, half kneeling, on the floor beside the bed. He gazed on me a moment in speechless wonder, and then, with the supernatural strength of life’s last effort, lifted himself from the pillows, and clasping his arms around me, drew me close, close to his heart. Oh, the blissful repose, the unmingled ecstasy of that moment. Forgotten were my wrongs and my sorrow—the agony behind, and the desolation before—the coming and the bygone despair. “Closer and closer grew his embrace, and his face touched mine. ‘My wife, my bride—receive the last kiss of him who is now wholly thine!’ I raised my head, and his cold lips pressed mine. I felt his form sink slowly beneath me, and the clinging arms relax their hold. I knew that the spirit had fled, and thanked God for that one hour of bliss which left me alone again on earth.” Here the manuscript ceased suddenly, and though some words had been added, apparently at a later date, the hand of the writer must have been weak indeed, for they were illegible. * * * * * A CASE OF GOLD FEVER. BY JOHN JONES. [SEE ENGRAVING.] Mr. Edwards Perley was not a man of wealth, although, at different periods of his life, he had been the owner of property valued at from one hundred thousand dollars to half a million. But this property being either in Texas land scrip, South Carolina gold mines, Western town lots, Mulberry trees, Maine wild lands, or other people’s promises to pay, Mr. Perley had never been able to realize what was so nearly a splendid fortune within his grasp. The revolution in Texas destroyed the value of Mexican grants, in which he had become largely interested, and the sale of square leagues of the “best cotton land in the world,” not only ceased suddenly, but the bills received for previous sales came back upon him dishonored. This was a sad damper on the golden hopes of the enthusiastic Mr. Edwards Perley. For a couple of years he had been selling land scrip from Bangor to New Orleans; and had been out on the Red River twice, during the time, with a surveying company, whose business it was to locate the little league-square lots. On these expeditions, he had become rather intimately acquainted with alligators and ague, and, on his return, deemed it no more than prudent to keep himself quiet until he regained his complexion, and the healthy roundness of his limbs and features. Mr. Perley worked hard in this matter; but it suited his temperament. He was no plodding genius, content to count sixpences first, then shillings, and so on until dollars began to appear. Not he. In that slow way to wealth he could not walk.