Though there is little likelihood that his example of self-abnegation and devotion to study will be followed by many of our youth, nevertheless, the occurrence of such a model now and then in the republic of letters constitutes a pleasing as well as useful phenomenon,—­if for no other reason, because it breaks in upon the monotony of literary biography, and communicates a portion of that picturesqueness to scholastic life which belongs to Nature in everything else.  That his course was fraught with happiness to himself cannot be doubted; that it was beneficial also to his fellow-men is equally true; and though he may be judged less leniently by minds incapable of pronouncing that to be a character honorable in the sight of God or man, which deviates from their own standard or creed,—­to others, who recognize the highest possible cultivation of the mental faculties and unsullied purity of life as the noblest ends of our being, he will ever occupy a position shared by few of mortal race.

* * * * *

ZELMA’S VOW.

IN TWO PARTS.

PART FIRST. HOW IT WAS MADE.

Who does not remember his first play?—­the proudly concealed impatience which seemed seething in the very blood,—­the provoking coolness of old play-goers,—­the music that rather excited than soothed the fever of expectation,—­the mystery of mimic life that throbbed behind the curtain,—­the welcome tinkle of the prompter’s bell,—­the capricious swaying to and fro of that mighty painted scroll,—­its slow uplift, revealing for an instant, perhaps, the twinkle of flying dancers’ feet and the shuffle of belated buskins?  And then, the unveiled wonders of that strange, new world of canvas and pasteboard and trap-doors,—­people, Nature, Art, and architecture, never before beheld, and but faintly conceived of,—­the magic of shifting scenes,—­the suddenness and awfulness of subterranean and aerial descents and ascents,—­the solemn stage-walk of the heroine,—­the majestic strut of the hero,—­the princely sweep of velvet,—­the illusive sparkle of paste,—­the rattle of Brobdignagian pearls,—­the saucy tossing of pages’ plumes,—­the smiles, the wiles, the astonishing bounds and bewildering pirouettes of the dancing Houries,—­the great sobs and small shrieks of persecuted beauty,—­the blighting smile of the villain,—­the lofty indifference of supernumeraries!

It was the first play of our heroine, Zelma Burleigh, and of her Cousin Bessie.  The morning before, a fragrant May morning, scores of summers ago, Roger Burleigh, a stout Northumbrian Squire, had rolled himself, in his ponderous way, into the snug family-parlor at the Grange, and addressed his worthy dame with a bluff—­

“Well, good wife, wouldn’t like to go see the players to-night?”

Ere the good lady could collect herself to reply with the decorous deliberateness becoming her years and station, an embroidery-frame at her side was overturned, and there sprang eagerly forward a comely young damsel of the pure Saxon stock, with eyes like England’s violets,—­clear, dewy, and wide-awake,—­cheeks and lips like its rose-bloom, and hair which held tangled in close, golden folds its fickle and flying sunshine.