leading through cross country lanes, far away from the general throng of the visiters, left more leisure for her affectionate fears. They had driven about two miles, and Robert was endeavouring to comfort her with hopes that their horse's lameness had forced them back again, and that her sister would be found safe at Aberleigh, when a sudden turn in the lane discovered a disabled gig, without horse or driver, in the middle of the road, and a woman seated on a bank by the side of a ditcha miserable object, tattered, dirty, shivering, drenched, and crying as if her heart would break. Was it? could it be Hetta? Yes, Hetta it was. All the misfortunes that had been severally predicted at their outset had befallen the unfortunate pair. Before they had travelled three miles, their wretched horse had fallen lame in his near fore leg, and had cast the off hind shoe, which, as the blacksmith of the place was gone to the Races, and nobody seemed willing to put himself out of the way to oblige a Frenchman, had nearly stopped them at the beginning of their expedition. At last, however, they met with a man who undertook to shoe their steed, and whose want of skill added a prick to their other calamities; then Monsieur Auguste broke a shaft of the cabriolet by driving against a post, the setting and bandaging which broken limb made another long delay; then came a pelting shower, during which they were forced to stand under a tree; then they lost their way, and owing to the people of whom Monsieur inquired not understanding his English, and Monsieur not understanding theirs, went full five miles round about; then

they arrived at the Chequers public house, which no effort could induce their horse to pass, so there they stopped perforce to bait and feed; then, when they were getting on as well as could be expected of a horse with three lame legs and a French driver, a waggon came past them, carried away their wheel, threw Monsieur Auguste into the hedge, and lodged Miss Henrietta in the ditch; so now the beau was gone to the next village for assistance, and the belle was waiting his return on the bank; and poor Hetta was evidently tired of her fine lover and the manifold misadventures which his unlucky gallantry had brought upon her, and accepted very thankfully the offer which Anne and Mary made, and Robert did not oppose, of taking her into the cart and leaving a line written in pencil on a leaf of Mary's pocket book, to inform Monsieur of her safety. Heartily glad was poor Hetta to find herself behind the good steed Dobbin, under cover of her sister's warm cloak, pitied and comforted, and in a fair way to get home. Heartily glad would she have been, too, to have found herself reinstated in the good graces of her old admirer. But of that she saw no sign. Indeed, the good yeoman took some pains to show that, although he bore no malice, his courtship was over. He goes, however, oftener than ever to the carpenter's house; and the gossips of Aberleigh say that this jaunt to Ascot will have its proper and usual catastrophe, a merry wedding; that Robert Hewitt will be the happy bridegroom, but that Hetta Coxe will not be the bride.

THE LITTLE GLEANER.

COME, wrinkled age, come, laughing youth,
The sun is bright and the breeze is south;
The reapers are in the fields, and here
They leave for the gleaner the golden ear:
The sickles are shining and busy-lo, look!
At the sinking corn and the rising stook.
The shepherd has touched, on the hill, his pipe :
The farmer comes forth where the field is ripe,
And plucks and ponders and silently stands,
The white grain shelling atween his hands:
'Tis hard and heavy, he cries "Come here,
My mirthsome maidens, and sing and shear."
'Tis pleasant to walk, while the harvest horn
The well-whet sickles hath called to the corn;
And the snooded maidens all stoop, with a smile,
Their swan-white necks to the burning toil;
The wild doves then drop down in flocks

To the full feast spread 'mongst the hooded shocks;
They shun thee not, young Gleaner, they know
A look so sweet will not work them woe;

They feed around thee, nor seek to fly
From that innocent face, and that dove-like eye.
Fair, beauteous child! I would willingly ask,
Did charity choose thee this gentle task?
Hast thou a grandame, hoary and dear—
A father to soothe, or a mother to cheer?
Some woe worn friend whom the scattered grain
Which the reapers leave will make smiling fain?