Oh, Higgins, Higgins, if I could have died for thee then, I don't know but I should have done it! CHAPTER IV. Seventy-five years have rolled by since last I met the reader, and I am still a thoughtless girl. But oh, how changed! The raven of despair has flapped his hideous brood over the halls of my ancestors, and taken from them all that once made them beautiful. When I look back I can see nothing before me, and when I look forward I can see nothing behind me. Thus it is with life. We fancy that each hour is a butterfly made to play with, and all is gall and bitterness. I was chastened by misfortune, and occupied a secluded cavern in the city of New Orleans, when my faithful old nurse entered my dressing-room, and burst into a fit of hysterical laughter. "Sassafrina!" I exclaimed, half angrily. "Please don't be angry, miss," responded the tired old creature; "but I knew it would come all right at last. I told you Sir Claude Higgins hadn't married his youngest sister, but you wouldn't believe me. Now he's down stairs in the parlor waiting for you." And the attached domestic fell dead at my feet. After hastily putting on a pair of clean stockings and reading a chapter in my mother's family Bible, I left the room, murmuring to myself, "Be still, my throbbing heart, be still." CHAPTER V. When I entered the parlor, Mr. Higgins sat gazing into the fire in an attitude of deep reflection, and did not note my entrance until I had touched him. His dishevelled hair hung from his massive temples in majestic discomposure, and an extinguished torch lay smouldering at his glorious feet. O my soul's idol! I can see thee now as I saw thee then, with the firelight glowing over thee, like a smile from the cerulean skies! As I touched him, he awoke. "Miserable girl!" he exclaimed, in those old familiar tones, drawing me towards him, while a delicious tremor shook my every nerve. "Wretched little serpent! And is it thus we meet? Poor idiot, you are but a woman, and I--alas! what am I? Two hours ago, I set fire to three churches, and crushed a sexton 'neath my iron heel. Do you not shrink? 'Tis well. Then hear me, viper, _I lovest thee_." Was it the music of a higher sphere that I smelt, or was I still in this world of folly and sin? And were all my toils, my cares, my heart-breathings, my hope-sobbings, my soul-writhings to end thus gloriously at last in the adoration of a being on whom I lavished all the spirit's purest gloatings? My bliss was more than I could endure. Tearing all the hair-pins from my hair and tying my pocket handkerchief about my heaving neck, I flung myself upon his steaming chest. "_My_ Higgins!" "YOUR Higgins!!" "OUR Higgins!!!" THE BLISSFUL FINIS.