"Then all my members became as it were burning grass. 'O good angel!' I cried, 'could I not at least efface some of these images?' He replied: 'All, if thou wilt.' 'And how?' 'Confess them; the breath of thy avowal will disperse them. Weep them in penance, and thy tears will efface even the traces thereof.'" The old man then told how he had made his confession, and what penance he did, wandering about in rags, without other food than that which he shared with the dogs. "I had known," he added, "all the pleasures of the earth, and had known some of its joys. But I found them still more in the miseries, the life-long fatigue, the hard humiliations of penance, because they were expiating my faults. Thus, then, O strangers, whatever fate Heaven may decree for you, if you desire happiness, find Our Lord Jesus Christ, and practice His justice." The old man was silent; the barbarians remained motionless. He, however, taking the young chief by the hand, led him to the esplanade of the castle, and showing him all that vast country which is watered by the Seine: "Young man," said he, "for as much as thou hast protected a poor old man, God will reward the noble heart within thee. Thou seest these lands so rich--they were once mine; and even now, after God, they have no other lawful owner. I give them to thee; make faith and equity reign there. I will rejoice in thy reign." Now this chief, to whom the penitent Robert thus bequeathed his faith and his inheritance, was Rollo, first Duke of the Normans. ALL SOULS' EVE. Where the tombstones gray and browned, And the broken roods around, And the vespers' solemn sound, Told an old church near; I sat me in the eve, And I let my fancy weave Such a vision as I leave With a frail pen here. Methought I heard a trail Like to slowly-falling hail And the sadly-plaintive wail Of a misty file of souls, As they glided o'er the grass, Sighing low: "Alas! alas! How the laggard moments pass In purgatorial doles!" Through their garments' glancing sheen, As if nothing were between, Pierced the moon's benignant beam To a grove of stunted pines; In whose distant lightsome shade, With their gilded coats arrayed, Danced a fairy cavalcade, To a fairy poet's rhymes. Then a cloud obscured the moon, And the fairy dance and rune Faded down behind the gloom Which along the upland fell, And my ears could only hear, In the church-yard lone and drear, The tinkle soft and clear Of the morning Mass's bell. It eddied through the air, And it seemed to call to prayer All the waiting spirits there Which the moon's beams showed, But each tinkle sank to die In a heart-distressing sigh, And no worshippers drew nigh With the penitential word.