room. The ladies now looked up, and, perceiving Dorn, quickly removed their veils. He instantly recognised his hospitable hostess and her lovely daughter.

"My dear Faith !" cried he with tender compassion; but the corporal rapped him upon the shoulder, and whispered to him, "silence, if you have any regard for your neck. Without the duke's permission no word must be uttered here."

A deep and awful silence now prevailed in the ante-chamber, broken only by some plaintive tone which occasionally reached them through the double doors which separated the two rooms. An angry voice suddenly cried within, "let the brute be hanged!""That was the duke," whispered one of the soldiers to another. The doors opened, and the delinquent was again led through the ante-chamber by his companion. "God be merciful to me!" stammered he, as he staggered onward and disappeared.

Again a deep silence, again the doors of the audience-room opened, and the counsellor cried out, "the Dane, with the two gentlewomen!"

"Forward!" commanded each of the corporals, and with a firm step Dorn walked into the hall, supporting the almost fainting females.

A tall haggard man, with a dreadful sternness in his yellow face and small twinkling eyes, frightfully expressive of anxiety, a magnificent plumed hat upon his short red head, a black velvet Spanish jacket decked with the stars and chains of various orders, an ermine trimmed, dark violet-coloured velvet mantle upon his shoulders, was standing by his gilded armchair before a table, at which three counsellors and a jesuit were seated. Six barons and the same number of knights, stood in files by the wall in respectful silence, that the behests of the all-powerful noble might be followed by instant execution, as the deed follows the will, or thunder the lightning. Behind the arm-chair stood the well-known captain of the life guards, who met the entering group with a smile of satanic triumph.

With the majesty of a prince of the lower world, the duke advanced to Dorn, looked at him with his little piercing eyes as though he would interrogate his soul, and in a gruffrepulsive tone asked him, "Danish captain?"

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By virtue of this commission," quietly answered Dorn, handing the document to him.

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The duke glanced through it, gave it back to him, and said, a prisoner of war, then !"

"When count Mannsfeld was driven through Silesia by

you," answered Dorn, "I was left in Oels severely wounded. I there found a charitable merchant who had my wounds healed and afterwards took me with him to Schweidnitz. Tired of the trade of war, I have remained there for the last two years, and served my benefactor in the capacity of book-keeper. Under these circumstances, I leave it for your sense of justice to decide whether I can be considered a prisoner of war."

"Or spy?" asked the duke.

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My free passport remains with the commandant of the city," answered Dorn.

"What was your object in coming to head quarters ?" asked the duke.

"To bring a scholar from Schweidnitz," answered Dorn, "for your school at Gitschin, and to take back to Schweidnitz my employer's mother-in-law and her daughter."

66 Prove it!" cried the examiner.

"Send to the merchant Engelmann," said Dorn; "who must have left his prison last evening; and Madam Rosen must yet have the letter which she wrote to Schweidnitz, and which I brought back to her as my credential."

"Here is the unlucky letter," sobbed the trembling widow, handing it to the duke on bended knee.

"We

He took it, read, and turned towards the captain. have your portrait here," said he; "not flattered, but well drawn. Did you know the object of his coming here?"

The captain replied only by stammering some unintelligible words.

"He wished to prevent their departure," said Dorn.

"To know and keep silence, is called lying!" observed the duke, with anger. Then to Dorn, "you have, however, abused the emperor !"

"That is not true!" cried the latter with vehemence.

"He drank the emperor's health with the captain!" cried the trembling Faith, encouraged by her anxiety for the youth. "I and my mother are witnesses, and because he drank the emperor's health, the captain pretended that he had enlisted for a soldier."

"Shame upon you!" thundered the duke. "Has a lord who has all Europe for a recruiting ground, need of such miserable devices ?"

"Here is a heretic conspiracy," cried the captain, "planned for my destruction. This woman is secretly a Lutherap, together with her daughter. Already have I twice watched their stolen attendance upon the preacher of Eckensdorf. For that

reason they have called the Mannsfelder here, that he may take them to heretical Schweidnitz, where they can practise their idolatry undisturbedly; and because, out of zeal for the true faith, I wished to prevent their heathenish abominations, I am calumniated by the apostate women and their accomplice."

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Heap not new insults upon us," cried Dorn, forgetting in whose presence he stood. "You know that you yet owe me satisfaction for those of last evening. You promised indeed to meet me this morning; but you preferred to rob me of my liberty and the ability to punish you for the outrage you committed, by false charges.'

Mannsfelder! Mannsfelder!" exclaimed the duke, secretly delighted with the boldness of the warrior; "We also are yet here!" and turning to the captain, he asked; "What have you to say to his accusation?""

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Challenged and not appear!" cried he, as the captain stood mute, with frightfully flashing eyes. "A Friedlandish captain! Announce yourself to the officer of the day as under arrest, and immediately afterwards seek for your discharge. You can no longer serve under Wallenstein !"

"Yet the captain's information with regard to the secret church-going of these women may well deserve some consideration," remarked the jesuit, rising.

"A soldier should be no priestly spy," angrily answered the duke. "I am the emperor's generalissimo; but not his inquisitor. What care I about the catechisms of his subjects. They may believe what they like, provided they but give what they should. I adhere to my decision."

With a devout sigh the jesuit again seated himself; and, in despair at the rebound of his last arrow, the captain left the hall.

With a kindness which strangely suited his stony face, the duke now stepped directly to Dorn and slapped him upon the shoulder. "You are laconic and resolute," said he,." I like that; and moreover I must have seen this face somewhere." Perhaps on the Elbe near Dessau," answered Dorn.

"Right!" cried the duke. "You are the officer who held the last entrenchment with such obstinacy. I liked you, even then. Will you become a major in my regiment of life-guards? I shall conclude a peace with Denmark at the earliest opportunity, and so your Danish commission need be no hindrance." "To the true hero the truth may be fearlessly spoken," "I cannot fight against my conscience."

"I regret that any obstacle deprives me of your services,"

said the duke. "I would very willingly do something to Ask some favour of me!"

oblige you.

"I have only to ask you," said Dorn, "to permit me to depart immediately for Schweidnitz with these ladies, and also your permission to take back with me the poor boy whom I tore from his friends in obedience to your commands.'

"Well, take the whole baggage, comrade," said the duke beneficently: "and a prosperous journey to you! I will cause the necessary papers to be given you."

The duke kindly nodded permission to retire, and Dorn led the ladies from the hall.

"A happy escape from the lion's den!" sighed the matron with a lighter heart, as she turned her back upon the palace. "What may not one accomplish who is a man in the fullest sense of the word!" cried the enthusiastic Faith, pressing Dorn's hand to her heart.

"I know not," said Dorn pensively, "whether I shall have especial reason to rejoice at the turn the affair has taken or not. It just now occurs to me that the dismission of your persecutor from his quarters in your house, removes the evil which impelled you to leave Sagan, and that you may not now wish to accompany me to Schweidnitz."

"O! we have on many accounts long desired to visit our Katharine," said Faith with great earnestness. "Our house can never remain long free from this detestable quartering, and who knows how the next may conduct himself! Besides, I fear the captain now as much as I did before. He has lost the power of tormenting us, and his bread into the bargain. He will soon be released from the guard-house, and a bad man, however insignificant may be his situation, has the power to njure with the will!"

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My daughter's zeal," smilingly interposed the matron, 66 saves me the trouble of explaining my reasons for wishing to go with you. Let it suffice, that we ride with you to Schweidnitz.'

(To be continued.)

THE CITY CHURCH.

EVERY Sabbath morning, in the summer time, I thrust back the curtains, to watch the sunrise stealing down a church steeple, which stands opposite my chamber window. First, the weathercock begins to flash; then, a fainter lustre gives the

spire an airy aspect; next it encroaches on the tower, and causes the index of the dial to glisten like gold, as it points to the gilded figure of the hour. Now, the loftiest window gleams, and now the lower. This carved frame-work of the portal is marked strongly out. At length, the morning glory, in its descent from Heaven, comes down the stone steps, one by one; and there stands the steeple, glowing with fresh radiance, while the shades of twilight still hide themselves among the nooks of the adjacent buildings. Methinks, though the same sun brightens it, every fair morning, yet the steeple has a peculiar robe of brightness for the Sabbath.

By dwelling near a church, a person soon contracts an attachment for the edifice. We naturally personify it, and conceive its massive walls, and its dim emptiness, to be instinct with a calm, and meditative, and somewhat melancholy spirit. But the steeple stands foremost, in our thoughts, as well as locally. It impresses us as a giant, with a mind comprehensive and discriminating enough to care for the great and small concerns of all the city. Hourly, while it speaks a moral to the few that think, it reminds thousands of busy individuals of their separate and most secret affairs. It is the steeple, too, that flings abroad the hurried and irregular accents of general alarm; neither have gladness and festivity found a better utterance, than by its tongue; and when the dead are slowly passing to their home, the steeple has a melancholy voice to bid them welcome. Yet, in spite of this connexion with human interests, what a moral loneliness, on week days, broods round about its stately height! It has no kindred with the houses above which it towers; it looks down into the narrow thoroughfare, the lonelier, because the crowd are elbowing their passage at its base. A glance at the body of the church deepens this impression. Within, by the light of distant windows, amid refracted shadows, we discern the vacant pews and empty galleries, the silent organ, the voiceless pulpit, and the clock, which tells to solitude how time is passing. Time-where man lives not-what is it but eternity? And in the church, we might suppose, are garnered up, throughout the week, all thoughts and feelings that have reference to eternity, until the holy day comes round again, to let them forth. Might not, then, its more appropriate site be in the outskirts of the town, with space for old trees to wave around it, and throw their solemn shadows over a quiet green? We will say more of this, hereafter.

But, on the Sabbath, I watch the earliest sunshine, and fancy