learning, I have studied to weave it up from truths. If you would like to hear it,--it is very short--” “Above all things,” said Vane; and the German drew a manuscript neatly bound from his pocket. “After having myself criticised so insolently the faults of our national literature,” said he, smiling, “you will have a right to criticise the faults that belong to so humble a disciple of it; but you will see that, though I have commenced with the allegorical or the supernatural, I have endeavoured to avoid the subtlety of conceit, and the obscurity of design, which I blame in the wilder of our authors. As to the style, I wished to suit it to the subject; it ought to be, unless I err, rugged and massive,--hewn, as it were, out of the rock of primeval language. But you, madam--doubtless you do not understand German?” “Her mother was an Austrian,” said Vane; “and she knows at least enough of the tongue to understand you; so pray begin.” Without further preface, the German then commenced the story, which the reader will find translated* in the next chapter. * Nevertheless I beg to state seriously, that the German student is an impostor; and that he has no right to wrest the parentage of the fiction from the true author. CHAPTER XIX. THE FALLEN STAR; OR THE HISTORY OF A FALSE RELIGION. AND the STARS sat, each on his ruby throne, and watched with sleepless eyes upon the world. It was the night ushering in the new year, a night on which every star receives from the archangel that then visits the universal galaxy its peculiar charge. The destinies of men and empires are then portioned forth for the coming year, and, unconsciously to ourselves, our fates become minioned to the stars. A hushed and solemn night is that in which the dark gates of time open to receive the ghost of the Dead Year, and the young and radiant Stranger rushes forth from the clouded chasms of Eternity. On that night, it is said that there are given to the spirits that we see not a privilege and a power; the dead are troubled in their forgotten graves, and men feast and laugh, while demon and angel are contending for their doom.