The packet contained a
small cross which she had always worn, her miniature, and her psalter.
The traveller who may now wander into the little valley, near
Burgersdorf, where Alvinzi dwelt, will find the cypress, planted upon
his grave the day after his funeral, only three years' growth; and if he
go and sit under the tree, beneath which Alvinzi reposed his withered
and broken frame for thirty summers, will perhaps agree with the
narrator of this mournful story, that mercy was mingled in his bitter
cup, and that
Society is all but rude,
To that delicious solitude.
The peasants of that valley tell, with a superstitious awe, that Alvinzi
was wont to discourse for hours together with departed spirits; and
that they have stolen near his tree at sunset, and in the gloom of the
evening, and by moonlight, and have distinctly heard him talking with
some one whom he called "Beatrice."
[The Embellishments of the _Souvenir_ are nearly on a par with
those of previous years, with a light sprinkling of originality in the
subjects.]
* * * * *
FINE ARTS.
* * * * *
CROSSES.[3]
[Illustration: (_In Devonshire_,)]
The subjoined are two specimens of rude workmanship, in comparison with
the ingenuity displayed in the Crosses already illustrated in our pages.
They are engraved from a drawing made by Mr. Britton, about thirty years
since.
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