crucifix - motioned the negroes to follow with her children's bodies. The
negroes all crowded about her; they wept bitterly: they had lined the grave
with fine foliage and soft ferns. The little bodies were laid down tenderly.
Louise placed the crucifix upon them; she sprinkled the holy water abun-
dantly over them. She took up her
the book dropped from her hand.
she fell forward heavily insensible in
while we carried Louise back to the empty, noiseless tent."

manual to read, but it was too much;
'O God! I cannot!'
'O God! I cannot!' I caught her as
my arms. The negroes filled the grave

MR

MRS. MARIE BUSHNELL WILLIAMS.

RS. M. B. WILLIAMS is a native of Baton Rouge, La. Her father, Judge Charles Bushnell, came to this State from Massachusetts within the first decade after the purchase of Louisiana had been accomplished, and in due time married into a Creole family of substantial endowments and high repute. Judge Bushnell was well and favorably known at the bar of Louisiana. He was a gentleman of great legal erudition; but, though devoted to his profession, he found time to cultivate the general branches of literature, and to participate in their elegant enjoyments.

His favorite daughter, Marie, early manifested a studious disposition. She was a fair, bright-eyed, spiritual girl, of more than ordinary promise. Though slight in figure, she was compactly formed. Her features were cast in nature's finest mould, and her clear dark and smooth fair brow were radiant with intellectual light.

eye

When this description would apply to Miss Bushnell, she became the élève of Alexander Dimitry, whose fame as a scholar has since become world-wide. The management of a pupil so richly dowered with God's best gifts was a pleasing task to the professor, and he soon imparted to her not only the fresh instruction which she required, but a deep and profound reverence for learning akin to that which he felt himself.

This relation of teacher and scholar continued for several years, and was not severed till Miss Bushnell became a complete mistress of all the principal modern languages. Indeed, the range of her studies was quite extended, and we hazard very little in saying that she was, when they were completed, the most learned woman in America.

At length, when she had rounded into perfect womanhood, physically as well as mentally, the honor of an alliance with her was sought by many of the proudest and wealthiest gentlemen of Louisiana. The successful suitor proved to be Josiah P. Williams, a planter of Rapides, and since the date of her marriage, in 1843, she has resided near Alexandria, on Red River, with the exception of a brief experience of refugee-life in Texas when the war was at its height.

As a wife, and the mother of an interesting family of children, Mrs. Williams performed her whole duty. But though the domestic virtues found in her a true exponent, they by no means lessened her interest in literary pursuits. For her own amusement and that of a choice coterie of literary friends - her constant visitors—she was accustomed to weave together legends of Louisiana, both in prose and verse, which soon established her reputation among those who were admitted into the charmed circle. She, however, had no fancy for the plaudits of the world. For years she refused to appear in print, but when at length a few of her articles found their way into literary journals, she was at once admitted to an assured position among judges as a singer and a teacher. With a vast fund of acquired knowledge; a mind original, philosophic, and sympathetic; a fancy at once brilliant and beautifully simple, added to a mastery of language when force of style was found necessary, and an easy, happy facility in all the lighter phases of literary effort,- Mrs. M. B. Williams will yet, when the world knows her merits and does her justice, take her place among the first of the distinguished women of America.

We have not before us any complete list of the productions of her pen, nor shall we attempt any critical analysis of those specimens which are to follow this article. They shall be left to the good taste and judgment of our readers, with a full confidence that they cannot fail to please.

We shall merely say, in conclusion, that Mrs. Williams suffered severely by the reverses which marked the latter years of the "lost cause." The death of her husband was her first great sorrow: the destruction of her beautiful residence, "The Oaks," by the vandal followers of Banks in his Red River raid; the wounding of one son; the untimely death of another; the material misfortunes which reduced her from affluence to poverty,- all followed in such disheartening succession, that few indeed could have borne up under such a series of calamities. But her faith was strong. She could look religiously through the storms of the present into the calm and glory of that peace which is to come. Few have ever met reverses with greater fortitude, or fought the battle of life more bravely. For years past she has been a constant and valued contributor to the New Orleans "Sunday Times," and while her writings have proved her a brilliant thinker, they show no traces of egotistic grief. The sorrows by which

she has been surrounded are mourned by her only as sorrows common to the whole desolated South.

Mrs. Williams has in preparation, to be published in a volume, "Tales and Legends of Louisiana," in a lyrical poema poem which we hope will introduce her talents to the whole country, making her name familiar as a "household word.”

As a translator from the French, German, and Spanish, Mrs. Williams is deservedly successful, her translations from the German language being very felicitous and faithful.

PLEASANT HILL.

Roll my chair in the sunlight, Ninetta,
Just here near the slope of the hill,
Where the red bud its soft purple clusters
Droops down to the swift-flowing rill.

See the golden-hued wreaths of the jasmine,
Like stars, through yon coppice of pine,
While the fringe-tree its white floating banners
Waves out from the blossoming vine.

How the notes of the mocking-bird, ringing
From hillside and woodland and vale,

Greet the earliest flush of the morning
With trills of their happy love-tale!

Ah! beauty and music and gladness,
Ye follow the footsteps of spring;

The breeze, in its pure balmy freshness,

Seems fanned from some bright angel's wing.

Look yonder and see, little daughter,

Where locust-trees scatter their bloom,

Have the pansies, in velvet-eyed sadness,

Peeped yet through the turf near the tomb?

Nay, then, turn not aside, my Ninetta;
The grave of our Walter should gleam
In the earliest flush of the spring-time-
The glow of the autumn's last beam.

For he loved them, the flowers and sunshine,
The birds, and all beautiful things;
But he loved best the dim purple pansy
That over his resting-place springs.

Ah! just there, where that laurel is glancing,
Just there, in that sink of the dell,
Came a surge of the deadliest combat,
Sweeping on in its terrible swell.

And I saw him, my darling, my treasure,
My boy with the sunlighted hair;

I could see the proud sweep of his banner,
And the smile that his lip used to wear!

Ah! he led them, how bravely, Ninetta!

His voice, with its silver tones, pealed
Through the hurtling storm of the battle,
As it swept o'er the blood-streaming field.

I watched a strange wavering movement,
I watched from yon low cottage-door,
Till a riderless horse bounded upward-
Then I lay with my face to the floor.

There he lies now, my sunny-haired darling,
My boy with the frank, fearless eyes!
And I fancy to-day that they watched me
From the depths of the shadowless skies.

Ah! watching his sorrowful mother,

And watching this sorrowful land,

That his heart's crimson life-tide had moistened For the tread of a fanatic band.

What! in tears? Ah! my gentle Ninetta,
Your mother has mourned for her child

With none of that womanly weakness
That softens an anguish too wild.

But I look at his grave in the sunlight,

And my heart in its radiance grows strong, For he died in the flush of his triumph, And not in this tempest of wrong.