‘What think ye of these people?’ said the stranger, when Christopher and Hubert had gazed and wondered long.

‘They are mad!’ said Christopher, ’to give and take such trouble for no end.’

‘What grievous disturbance they make about so short a journey!’ cried Hubert.  ‘Good stranger, tell us of what Bedlam are they?’

‘They belong to all the madhouses of the world,’ said the stranger.

’But why are they here?—­where are they going?—­and what lies beyond these mists?’ cried the brothers in a breath.

‘Dear brothers, who were so true and loving of old,’ said the stranger, ’concerning this matter, believe that you will learn hereafter; for the present, know that this which ye have seen is the great and busy road of life; but strive to become more wise and prudent travellers, and see that ye fall not out by the way.’

As he ceased, a gleam of sunshine broke through the twilight, and fell full upon him.  In its brightness, the noble aspect did not alter, but grew more familiar to their eyes; and Christopher and Hubert knew at the same moment that he was none other than their brother Gottleib.  Both sprang to embrace him, but the way, the travellers, and Gottleib, vanished from them.  They looked into each other’s faces by the early sunlight which streamed through the closed shutters of their room, and gleamed on the brazen clasps of the Coverdale Bible, still lying between them on the table where they had fallen asleep.

Such is the account of the affair given by themselves; although more, it is believed, to suit the taste and belief of the time they lived in than their own.  The two brothers had passed many hours silent and in the dark; and it is not unreasonable to suppose that the visionary world, into which they had unconsciously slipped, presented to both such phenomena—­founded on the meditations and recollections in which both had been immersed—­as were easily rendered in the exoteric types of romance.  The brothers talked long over the vision, and could scarcely satisfy even themselves that it was indeed a dream; but they agreed on its use of wisdom and warning, and disputed no more.  The old house was not sold, nor the types divided.  It is even affirmed that the bookseller’s daughter and the Catholic widow lived there as right friendly sisters-in-law; and after many a broadside and folio page, the press they had worked for so many years at length struck off the tale we have just related—­the German brothers supposing that some honest men in England might profit, as they had done, by a look upon Life’s Highway.

DUST-SHOWERS AND RED-RAIN.

Recent scientific investigations in Europe and America have thrown some interesting light on the nature of these very curious phenomena.  The results arrived at may be brought familiarly before our readers.