Ichabod sunk back upon his pillows, and gazed with eyes of fitful light upon the girl, while she, opening the keen knife, cut slowly and laboriously round the margin of the stout canvas, which shrieked beneath the blade, as if the spirit of the effigy which it bore were resisting the fearful doom which threatened it. At last the canvas was entirely released, and Faith silently held it up before the eyes of the dying man, upon whose face had come a dull, leaden blankness, and whose eyes were painful to watch as they struggled to pierce the film which was gathering over them. "Burn," he hoarsely murmured. With a sigh, Faith cut the picture into strips, and laid them gently, reverently, upon the coals heaped in the large fireplace. The greedy flames leaped up to grasp their prey, and Faith turned sick and faint as she watched them fasten upon that noble face, which seemed to contract and shrivel in its anguish as they seized upon it. She gazed a moment, painfully fascinated, then turned toward the bed,--but as her eyes fell upon Ichabod's face, she started back, and, rousing the old woman from her slumber, sent to summon her mother. Mrs. Coffin came immediately,--but when she entered the little chamber, the last fragment of the canvas was shrivelling in the flames, the last sigh of the dying man was parting from his white lips. They had perished together,--the First--and the Last. THE PROFESSOR AT THE BREAKFAST-TABLE. WHAT HE SAID, WHAT HE HEARD, AND WHAT HE SAW. You will know, perhaps, in the course of half an hour's reading, what has been haunting my hours of sleep and waking for months. I cannot tell, of course, whether you are a nervous person or not. If, however, you are such a person,--if it is late at night,--if all the rest of the household have gone off to bed,--if the wind is shaking your windows as if a human hand were rattling the sashes,--if your candle or lamp is low and will soon burn out,--let me advise you to read the "Critical Notices" or some other paper contained in this number, if you have not already devoured them all, and leave this to be read by daylight, with cheerful voices round, and people near by who would hear you, if you slid from your chair and came down in a lump on the floor.