The picture of the awful ancestress met with little injury in its fall; but several years elapsed before it was hung up again in its former place. It was, however, at length restored to its old position, but fastened with new rope, and everything necessary to make it more secure. The dreadful occurrence was beginning to be forgotten, and the brotherly affection which had somewhat cooled, seemed to have displayed itself sufficiently in having banished the lofty dame for some years to a lumber-room. She could not always be left there! So at length she hung in her old place again, as stern, as frowning as formerly. And the count, who had now become an old man, generally when he alluded to the terrible event, reasonably ascribed it to natural causes. But, once upon a time, when he observed his youngest daughter, a girl not much more than sixteen years of age, casting furtive and rather friendly glances at a young man, the son of a country parson, who, on account of his handsome person and pleasant manners, was often received at the baronial castle,--when he saw this, by means of some sidelong looks with the corner of his eye, which were not perceived by the young couple, then he took his daughter by the hand, led her silently and solemnly into the picture-gallery, walked with her up to the replaced portrait of their great ancestress, and said with the gravity of an anxious father, and the dignity of an aristocratic nobleman,--

'Beware, my daughter! Remember the fate of your aunt!'

These words were all he uttered.

'And this happened in the nineteenth century, and here in our father-land? 'Such an inquiry will assuredly be made by one or other of our readers. But we will not answer it ourselves; we shall only advise the inquirer to address himself to the descendants of one of the most ancient families in Scania, and ask them whether it be true or not.

[THE MAN FROM PARADISE.][[10]]

A Comic Tale.

FROM THE DANISH OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.

There was a widow, once upon a time--
Yet stop--with truth we must commence our rhyme--
She had been such, but now another spouse
Had sought her love, and won the widow's vows.

One evening she was quite alone at home
(For the best husbands sometimes like to roam);
She sat, her cheek reposing on her hand,
The tea-things spread upon the table, and
The kettle singing by, or on the fire--
A sort of a monotonous steam lyre:
Her thoughts from this low world of fogs had flown
Up to the husband she first called her own;
She could not quite the dear, kind soul forget--
And ah! the other one was absent yet.
'But thou art happy now,' she cried--'in case
In Abraham's bosom thou hast found a place:
Thou pitiest us, in these rooms close and old,
Where one so often gets a cough or cold.'