n a throne, and the most loyal subject, the proudest peer,
would have sworn the blood within her veins had descended from a
hundred kings. She was a proud creature, with a tall, commanding
form, and raven tresses, that floated, dark and cloud-like, over her
shoulders. She was a singularly-gifted woman, and possessed of rare
inspiration. She loved the widower for his power and his fame, and she
wedded him. They were married in that church. It was on a summer
afternoon--I recollect it well. During the ceremony, the blackest
cloud I ever saw overspread the heavens like a pall, and, at the
moment when the _third bride_ pronounced her vow, a clap of thunder
shook the building to the centre. All the females shrieked, but the
bride herself made the response with a steady voice, and her eyes
glittered with wild fire as she gazed upon her bridegroom. He remarked
a kind of incoherence in her expressions as they rode home-ward, which
surprised him at the time. Arrived at his house, she shrunk upon the
threshold: but this was the timidity of a maiden. When they were alone
he clasped her hand--it was as cold as ice! He looked into her face.

"Madeleine," said he, "what means this? your cheeks are as pale as
your wedding gown!" The bride uttered a frantic shriek.

"My wedding gown!" exclaimed she; "no, no--this--this is my sister's
shroud! The hour for confession has arrived. It is God that impels me
to speak. To win you I have lost my soul! Yes--yes--I am a murderess!
She smiled upon me in the joyous affection of her young heart--but I
gave her the fatal drug! Adelaide twined her white arms about my neck,
but I administered the poison! Take me to your arms: I have lost my
soul for you, and mine must you be!"

"She spread her long, white arms, and stood like a maniac before him,"
said the sexton, rising, in the excitement of the moment, and assuming
the attitude he described; "and then," continued he, in a hollow
voice, "at that moment came the thunder and the flash, and the guilty
woman fell dead upon the floor!" The countenance of the narrator
expressed all the horror that he felt.

"And the bridegroom," asked I; "the husband of the destroyer and the
victims--what became of him?"

"_He stands before you_!" was the thrilling answer.

CALIFORNIA SPECULATION.

Mose Jenkins did not take the California fever when it first broke
out; for he was, as he acknowledged himself, "slow-motioned," and his
skull was of such formid