a confused murmur sounded in his ears. He
tried to rise; but the effort seemed to overcome
him. and he sank motionless in the arms
of his wife.

Did he still breathe? Madame Felner the
elder, who still retained her self-possession,
could not ascertain. Her daughter did everything
to restore consciousness that despair
suggested.

Amidst this dreadful uncertainty, the
blast of a trumpet, the hoofs of horses, and
clanging of arms, was heard in the courtyard.
To this, Gabrielle was insensible; she
clung to her inanimate husband with frantic
grief. Madame Felner, however, ran to the
window; a troop of hussars was drawn up
in the form of a guard of honour. At the
same instant an officer rushed into the room,
and without heeding the ladies, shook the
dying man by the hand with the rough energy
of an old campaigner.

"Felner! Felner! " he shouted; " awake.
You have not a moment to lose." A tremor
passed over the prostrate man's frame. His
wife shrieked for joy at this sign of animation.

The hussars in the court-yard now presented
arms, and the " salute " was blown
lustily by the trumpeters. This was followed
by a loud shout " Long live the General!"

At these words the dying man rose slowly
as if still in a trance. He stood for a moment
transfixed. He pressed his hands to his
head; his eyes slowly opened.

"General Felner!" began the officer.

"General?" repeated Léon, like a man in
a dream. His wife and mother looked on in
much amazement.

"Yes; here is your commission, and the
Emperor's orders under his own hand."

Leon took the paper like a somnambulist;
but at the sight of Napoleon's writing, consciousness
appeared to return; and he began
to give orders for his own immediate departure,
with the habitual precision and promptitude
of an officer on active service.

Meanwhile, the cause of Léon's malady
was explained to Major Angarde. The major
smiled.

"Why, that monk," he said, " is an old
ally of mine! Four years ago I was in the
hospital in the same monastery; and even
then the same monk played the farce which
so deluded the General. He carries it on to
this day. He is stark mad. He is possessed
by the idea that he is dead, and had, by an
earthly penance, to redeem his soul from
purgatory, by performing a certain number of
services, in which he was continually asking
us to help him, and as continually dooming
whoever was wise enough to comply, to
death, in three years."

Léon was not slow in reviving from his
delusion. Further explanations completely
dispelled it, and he hid his shame in the
embraces of his wife, whose grief was now
awakened from another cause; that of his
departure to the field of battle.

Léon Felner passed through the battle of
Waterloo scatheless, although he performed
his part bravely and well, and lives to this
day to smile at having made himself for three
whole years the hero of a Modern Monkish
Legend.

THE NINEVEH BULL.

To the honour of the Unapproachable, and
of his Ministers, the Fires of Heaven and
Earth, be it spoken:—

I am the Bull of Nineveh. I was born in
the quarries beside the river, the great river,
in the birth-place of my Creator, Man. My
early existence I know but dimly; my
memory is as the figures in morning's mist.
Thus much I recollect. As a shapeless block
was my substance borne to its place; there
did the hands of cunning workmen fashion
me; and as my shape was formed, so did I
gain a knowledge of things around: the
chisel carved my ear, and I heard; the tool
opened mine eyes, and I saw; I stood on my
pedestal and gazed around me. Beside me
was a companion like myself; we two
guarded the threshold. It was a hall of
royal magnificence. From a floor of alabaster
rose walls of like substance; their height
was as mine own height, and above them
were gaudy patterns, textures of silver, gold,
and brilliant dyes: over all was a roof fretted
with the odorous cedar, the lithe poplar, and
the pillared palm.

But who can tell the glory of the sculptured
wall? I beheld it with no ignorant gaze, for as
was my body, so was there given me a mind;
with my wings I could soar like the Eagle,
my feet bore me as the Bull; I was decked
in royal apparel, and above I had the lineaments,
the head, and the mind of man. I
gazed and wondered. Here raged the battle;
there, in exulting pomp, moved the solemn
triumph; there was the strong warrior, here
the sad captive. I beheld the awful rites of
worship, the forms of holy men, the symbols
of mighty gods. There were figures as of
kings before me; they bent the warrior's bow,
or hurled the hunter's lance, or knelt in
humble adoration before the mystic tree, or
fell prostrate to the Almighty Seven, the
rulers of the heavens, the fates of men below.
They were a voiceless company around me,
and yet they had an utterance, not by the
passing sound of tongues, but with the enduring
memorial of the glittering characters
that shone forth among them. I felt myself
the guardian of a nation's history, the emblem
of its power, and the thought stamped itself
on my features in a smile which has endured
till now, proud at once and solemn, showing
a consciousness not unpleasing of my might
and glorious destiny.

And now the living forms of my companions
throng around me; a thing exceeding glorious
to behold proudly sits on the throne of the
Great Hunter. About him are his subject