evening the operation was performed. The pain was slight, and was endured by the patient without a murmur. For a few days after the surgeon insisted on her wearing a covering over her eyes, until the wounds which he had found it necessary to inflict, had been perfectly healed.

One morning, after he had felt her pulse and made the necessary inquiries, he said, while he held the hand of the widow, “I think we may now venture with safety to remove the covering. Compose yourself now, my good old friend, and suppress all emotion. Prepare your heart for the reception of a great happiness."

The poor woman clasped her hands firmly together, and moved her lips as if in prayer. At the same moment the covering fell from her brow, and the light burst in a joyous flood upon her soul. She sat for an instant bewildered and incapable of viewing any object with distinctness. The first on which her eyes reposed was the figure of a young man bending his gaze with an intense and ecstatic fondness upon hers, and with his arms outstretched as if to anticipate the recognition. The face, though changed and sunned since she had known it, was still familiar to her. She started from her seat with a wild cry of joy, and cast herself upon the bosom of her son.

She embraced him repeatedly, then removed him to a distance, that she might have the opportunity of viewing him with

The

greater distinctness-and again, with a burst of tears, flung herself upon his neck. Other voices, too, mingled with theirs. She beheld her daughter and their children waiting eagerly for her caress. She embraced them all, returning from each to each, and perusing their faces and persons as if she would never drink deep enough of the cup of rapture which her recovered sense afforded her. beauty of the young mother-the fresh and rosy colour of the children-the glossy brightness of their hair-their smiles-their movements of joy-all afforded subjects for delight and admiration, such as she might never have experienced, had she never considered them in the light of blessings lost for a time. The surgeon, who thought that the consciousness of a stranger's presence might impose a restraint upon the feelings of the patient and her friends, retired into a distant corner, where he beheld, not without tears, the scene of happiness which he had been made instrumental in conferring.

"Richard," said the widow, as she laid her hand upon her son's shoulder and looked into his eyes, "did I not judge aright, when I said, that even when we thought ourselves the most miserable, the Almighty might have been preparing for us some hidden blessing? Were we in the right to murmur?"

The young man withdrew his arms from his mother, clasped them before him, and bowed down his head in silence.

RIP VAN WINKLE.

BY WASHINGTON IRVING.

WHOEVER has made a voyage up the

Hudson, must remember the Kaatskill mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change of season, every change of weather, indeed every hour of the day, produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains, and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky; but sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will gather a hood of grey vapours about their summits, which, in the last rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.

At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the light smoke curling up from a village, whose shingle roofs

gleam among the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the earlier times of the province, just about the beginning of the government of the good Peter Stuyvesant (may he rest in peace!) and there were some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks.

In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain, a simple, good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple, good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbour, and an obedient, henpecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are ren