“Father in heaven, I cannot understand the decree of thy Providence, but I submit to thy dispensation without a murmur. I knew that in my womanly idolatry I was forgetting thee, and I now beseech thee, in thine infinite love, to have mercy upon me, and wash my soul from every transgression. Have mercy also, O God, upon him who has broken my heart; comfort my parents in their declining years, and answer my prayer through the merits of thy Son, the Redeemer of the world. I come to dwell with Thee, if thou wilt receive me to thy bosom. Amen and Amen.”
* * * * * * * *
Morning dawned, and the pleasant sunshine was flooding the world with beauty. Our Mary’s cousin was the first to awaken from slumber, when she encircled her bedfellow with her arms, and imprinted an affectionate kiss upon her lips; one moment more, and she was petrified with horror—for Mary Marlowe was numbered with the dead.
On the third day after that of St. Valentine, the lover of the unhappy suicide returned to the city. He found not his beloved in the pleasant parlor of her father, but a sleeper in the voiceless and desolate tomb. The fatal valentine was found and submitted to his inspection. He avowed his utter ignorance of it, and having fallen into a settled melancholy, is now a raving maniac. As to the thoughtless and wicked man who wrote the foolish valentine, his name and purpose are alike unknown.
Note.—The prominent features of this incident actually occurred in the city of New York in February, 1847.
INDIAN LEGENDS.
NOTE PRELIMINARY.
The following romantic but authentic legends have been collected by the writer from a variety of sources, and are now presented to the public as an addition to the aboriginal lore, already published in his several books of travel.