The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales | Page 7

undeserved, rather than your foul embrace!"
"You have chosen. Your blood be on your own head!" cried the
executioner, stamping his foot. "You die unshriven and unblessed!"
"At least, abhorred ruffian," cried Magdalena, "I have some little time
for preparation! The hour has not yet arrived."
"Has it not?" cried the executioner. "Behold yon clock!"
And as her eyes were strained upon the dial, he strode out of the cell,
and seizing the hands, advanced them to the hour of noon. Then, at a
signal from his hand, the prison bell began to toll.
"Mercy; mercy!" cried Magdalena, as he rejoined her. "Slay me not
before my time!"
But the hand of the ruffian already grasped her arm, and he dragged her
forth into the corridor.
At that moment, however, a loud shout arose, and a group of officials,

escorting the goldsmith and Julio, waving a paper in his hand, rushed
breathlessly along the passage.
"Saved, saved!" cried Magdalena. "Hither, hither, father, Julio!"
The executioner had wreathed his hand in her dark, flowing tresses;
already his dreadful weapon was brandished in the air, when it was
crossed by the bright Toledo blade of the young cavalier, and flew from
his grasp, clanging against the prison wall.
"Unhand her, dog!" cried Julio, "or die the death!"
Sullenly the executioner released his hold, and sullenly listened to the
royal pardon.
Magdalena was soon beneath her father's roof,--soon in the arms of her
cousin Juanita. Long did she resist the importunities of Julio; for
though innocent in fact, judicially she stood convicted of a capital
offence. But as time rolled on,--as her innocence became the popular
belief,--she finally relented, accepted his hand, and beneath the
beautiful sky of Italy, forgot, or remembered only as a dream, the perils
and sorrows of her early life.

PHILETUS POTTS.
A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.
Philetus Potts is dead. Like Grimes, he was a "good old man!" A true
gentleman of the old school, he clung to many of the fashions of a
by-gone period with a pertinacity, which, to the eyes of the thoughtless,
savored somewhat of the ludicrous. It was only of late years that he
relinquished his three-cornered hat; to breeches, buckles, and hair
powder he adhered to the last. He was also partial to pigtails, though
his earliest was shorn from his head by a dangerous rival, who cut him
out of the good graces of Miss Polly Martine, a powdered beauty of the
past century, by amputating his cue; while his latest one was sacrificed
on the altar of humanity--but thereby hangs a tale.

If Mr. Potts was behind his age in dress, he was in advance of it in
sentiment. In his breast the milk of human kindness never curdled, and
his intelligent mind was ever actively employed in devising ways and
means to alleviate the sufferings of humanity, and to change the hearts
of evil doers. His comprehensive kindness included the brute creation
as well as mankind, in the circle of his active sympathy.
We remember an instance of his sympathy for animals. We had been
making an excursion into the country. It was high noon of a sultry
summer day; eggs were cooking in the sun, and the mercury in the
thermometer stood at the top of the tube. Passing out of a small village,
we passed a young lady pleasantly and coolly attired in white, and
carrying a sunshade whose grateful shadow melted into the cool, clear
olive of her fine complexion.
Mr. Potts sighed, for she reminded him of Miss Polly Martine at the
same age; and Polly Martine reminded him of parasols by some
recondite association. Mr. Potts remembered the first umbrella that was
brought into Boston. He always carried one that might have been the
first, it was so venerable, yet whole and decent, like an old gentleman
in good preservation. It was a green silk one, with a plain, mahogany
handle, and a ring instead of a ferrule, and very large. Discoursing of
umbrellas, we came upon a cow. Mr. Potts was fond of cows--grateful
to them--always spoke of them with respect. This particular cow
inhabited a small paddock by the roadside, which was enclosed by a
Virginia fence, and contained very little grass, and no provision for
shade and shelter. So the cow stood in the sunshine, with her head
resting on the fence, and her tongue lolling out of her mouth, and her
large, intelligent eyes fixed on the far distance, where a herd of kine
were feasting knee-deep in a field of clover, beside a running brook,
overshadowed by magnificent walnut trees.
"Poor thing!" said Mr. Potts; and he stopped short and looked at the
cow.
The cow looked at Mr. Potts. One had evidently magnetically
influenced the other.

"She is a female, like the