tender inflection of voice, at the same time stretching forth his ponderous paw to perform the operation of shaking.

"Good night, Mr. Fish," kindly responded Julia, placing her small, delicate hand in some part of his.

But Potts parted not so prosaically. "Farewell, Julia," he muttered, in an impudent under-tone

"Farewell! a word that has been and must beA sound that makes us linger-yet farewell !" "Bless me," quoth Frank, "I have forgotten my gloveshow unfortunate !"

'Very," said Julia, as she closed the door after Fish and Potts, and followed Frank up stairs to look for the gloves.

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Brightly and beautifully shone the sun on the ensuing morning. Mild and balmy was the air, blue and serene the sky, and a universal harmony and cheerfulness seemed to pervade all nature. In a neat little church, a short distance from the town before alluded to, the bells were ringing merrily to and fro in consequence of the great heiress, Miss Smith, having that morning, as the old spinsters of the district said, "thrown herself away on handsome Frank Lumley, at the same time jilting" (as they alleged) "Mr. Potts, who had an excellent business, and Mr. Fish, who had a better." Be that as it might, lovely looked the little churchyard of which we were speaking-lovely looked it, cheerful, almost gay. The vocalists of the spring, unconscious of the solemnity of the place, sent forth a continuous stream of rich and merry music from every bush and tree with which it was adorned; there was a murmur of music in the mild and myriad-peopled air, and there was most exquisite music in the gentle rustle of the bride's white satin dress, as she tripped timidly down the narrow churchyard path towards the carriage at the gates, which was waiting to bear her away to purling streams and pastures green for the allotted month of honey.

How quick flies evil tidings to those concerned ! As she walked along with her eyes modestly bent downwards, they rested, quite unexpectedly, on the perturbed visage of Mr. Potts. Manifold were the emotions depicted therein; wrath,disappointment, affected disdain, wounded pride, self-conceit, and concentrated indignation, were a few of them. He raised his arm slowly, and pointed impressively to the skies, as much as to say, "There are your deceits and perjuries registered!" Julia instinctively looked up, when lo! high above her, but distinctly visible, she beheld the rueful, lugubrious physiogJUNE, 1840.

P P

nomy of Fish, bent reproachfully, though "more in sorrow than in anger," upon her. It was too much. She hastened forward, and without venturing another glance, entered the carriage. Frank, who appeared most insultingly happy, bowed to each of the gentlemen, and followed his fair bride. The door closed, the driver mounted, the little boys clustered round the gates, volunteered three cheers, and away drove the newmarried pair.

Fish stood as one entranced until the last rattle of the wheels died away upon his ear. He then buttoned his coat, let his hands, fall to the bottom of his trousers-pockets, and stalked solemnly homeward. When he arrived there, he shut up his shop, retired to his private apartments, closed the windowblinds, sat down by the fire, and sought and found relief in a flood of tears.

Potts, who was of a more fiery temperament, scorned to wet an eyelid. He strutted away, no one knew whither; but late on the evening of that eventful day, he was discovered in a state of insensibility at a small low tavern in the neighbourhood, with the trivial remains of the seventh tumbler of brandy and water before him. On the table lay a loaded pistol, and from his waistcoat protruded an unfinished "Ode to Despair," all about Tartarus, Tantalus, Tisiphone, and other cramped classicalities. They carried the little fellow home, put him to bed, and left him to sleep off his love and liquor at his leisure. "But what of that little flirt, Julia?" exclaims some maid of many years.

meanours?

Why, what of her? What have I to do with her misdeI am not bound to follow the prescribed fashion of manufacturing immaculate heroines. I describe Miss Smith as I knew her. She might have a slight shade of coquetry in her composition, but it was very slight; and then she was an only child, a beauty and an heiress. Not that Potts is to be adduced as any proof against her, for he was one of those presumptuous varlets that can extract meanings flattering to their vanity from the commonest civilities. But Fish-the meek, the modest, the unobtrusive :-yes, she must in sport have angled for Fish! Some tempting bait or other must have been mirthfuily thrown out. Perchance she was tickled with the idea of catching so very extraordinary and altogether unmatchable a lover. After she had caught him, there is a good deal to be said in her favour for not gratifying the expectations she had raised. Think of such a man in any household or domesti arrangement she might picture to herself—it was ludicrous.

Or imagine Fish in his night-cap! What a shock it must have given to all poor Julia's notions of the sublime and beautiful! No, there is much to be pleaded in extenuation.

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If the "whirligig of time brings round its revenges," it also brings about its reconciliations. I know not precisely how matters came about; but this I do know-that Frank invariably purchased his brown rappee at the shop of Mr. Potts; and that, early in the ensuing year, Fish acted as sponsor to a fine chubby boy, the first-born of Mr. and Mrs. Lumley.

OH, it is sweet to sail the deep,
With the broad pennant gaily spread
When the rough winds are all asleep,
And the last blush of day hath fled;
But sweeter on the moon-light shore,
To roam when only one is near;
And to that dark-eyed maid tell o'er
The tale which Beauty stays to hear.
Dear to the sailor is the star

That guides him on the stormy wave;
And holy seems, when from afar

It shines upon his sea-wrought grave:
But dearer far to me the light

Which beams from under Beauty's brow,
And holier, holier, in my sight

The given and exchanged vow.

Joyful, when for our port we aim,

From the man-royal tops on high,

To hear the look-out loud proclaim,

Land! land! the wished-for land is nigh!"

Yet oh! more joyful far the time,

When Beauty at my side shall stand,

And give away, in maiden prime,

To me a willing heart and hand!

CHAPTER V.

"Hopes, that like rainbows melt in shade,
And pass away."-L. E. LANDON.

THE stars were glittering, without a cloud to obscure their
light; but the full moon was slowly sinking beneath the wes-
tern waters. Sweetly, calmly, like a good man gliding in
peace to the land of sleepes, did it throw its mellowing light

upon the city, and along the shores of the Seine, ere it sank to its wavy couch.

Who that has once gazed upon that beautiful sight, has ever forgotten it? Who has not, as he gazed, felt its hallowing influences, and lifted up his heart to the golden pavilions of the sky in silent worship? And who that has gazed, has not felt their feebleness, and longed to flee upon the pinions of the dove to their far home in the heavens ?

Even as I write, she is slowly sinking beneath the distant horizon, which rests on the deep, blue expanse, like a long silken lash on the brow of the beautiful. She has thus set through months, and years, and centuries. She has thus shone over that bright water since creation dawned, and will thus shine until the records of time shall be rolled together, and the earth and the heavens sink into chaos. She has risen upon free and happy states, and has glittered upon their monuments. Imperial Rome, rich in empire, was beheld by her who now casts her mystic and undimmed light upon its rotting ruins. Unchanged and uncheangeable, she has looked from her silent home upon forgotten Thebes, sceptreless Larissa, and unremembered Philippi, as she did when the world trembled at their frown, or perished beneath their tread.

Her course through the heavens is now the same as the one on which she trod generations since. Like the dew, they have gone, and her path is on and still on. Cities have changed and passed away. Nations have arisen and decayed. The hills have mouldered, and the eternal mountains have bowed their cloud-capt palaces to dust. Oceans, hoarse with telling the flight of centuries, have moved from their unfathomed beds; and empires, big with conquest, swept like sparks from the fire. Towering pyramids have crumbled, and they who reposed beneath their shadow, passed to nothingness. Calmly has she thus looked from her far chambers, all glorious and undimmed, upon these, as we would upon wave chasing wave, on the bosom of the great deep, and yet her course is onward and still onward.

The thread of my tale carries the reader, for a short time, again with Francis Armine. From a disturbed slumber he had awaked and dressed, and was now leaning over his table with depressed spirits. Alas! that the summer sunshine flees before the chill of the wintry wind. Alas! that the summer flowers wither at the touch of autumn's frost. Alas! that the heart's deep fountain knows no second springtime, save when it gushes forth near the pavilions of the first and last! Armine's life had been a long and somewhat saddened dream

a dream of broken hopes and disappointed desires-a dream of unsolved mystery and phantom, because unlooked events. Oh! in the deep bitterness of his soul, how he longed for the happy and innocent days of his infancy-the free step, the buoyant spirit, the light heart, the gladdened mind, and the sweet, profound sleep-the mother's tender affection-the father's kind attention-and the sister's treasured love. Often had he stood above the voiceless resting places of the departed, and watched them in their unbroken sleep-a sleep that was not the companion of the boyish couch, the watchful burdensome rest of manhood, nor the fearful and restless pall that comes upon the eyelids of the aged; but the dark, the awful, the eternal sleep of death! And her who watched there with him, whither had she departed? Hope plants her tread on the shore, but sorrow washes out its trace with tears.

The swift winged hopes, the gentle thoughts, the ardent aspirings, the pure and beautiful dreams of our early years!— when gone, they never-never return. The heart's scarce budded flower, when withered, never opens again-the mind's secret chambers, when dimmed, never brighten again. They rise and fall like the summer wave, which when it sweeps away, leaves no mark of its existence on the wide waste of waters!

The past, whether bright or shadowy, still mirrors itself in the future. How sweet is it, then, as we approach the dim twilight of our present life, to bear with us no harrowing reflection from its ample stores-to know that the heart's sanctuary is pure and uncontaminated-that the incense of the soul is as fragrant and unquenched as when the priest entered its aisles. Awful, thrice awful, is the knowledge of an ill-spent youth! Awful, fearfully awful, is the recollection of its faults, and errors, and sins, and crimes. They will forever haunt us like dim ghosts. They will turn the pleasures of an old age to bitterest gall upon the lip. They will gnaw, as with viper fangs, about the heart, and change its hopes and dreams to dust and ashes. Oh! then, in life's "morning march," let us wander through the flowery path unmindful of the vice and crime that lure to cheat and disappoint, and our existence, flowing from so clear a fount, will pass on to its far home in the heavens, without shadow and without colouring.

Armine thus could look back to the past without fear, for it was not of crime, but disappointment and mystery that haunted him. Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, he resolved to wander forth. Again upon his horse, which he had