the angle where the road bent round behind the "peculiar diadem" of trees, he turned and took a long lingering look. At that moment the sun shone forth again, and the landscape glowed once more in all its exceeding beauty. An instant, and he resumed his walk, moved round the corner, and was lost to my sight.

My curiosity was much excited. I should have liked to follow him at a distance, and see where he went, but I felt constrained to stay where I was for another hour. It would have been cruel to have given him cause to suspect that his grief had been profaned by the eye of a spec

tator.

From that hour the tree and the landscape acquired a new interest for me, and my other walks became comparatively little frequented. In a fit of whim I carved on the bark of the sycamore the name of "The tree of sorrow," and on the stone over the fountain, these words; "The waters of Marah." Often afterwards I drank of the water, and sat among the branches, but never more did I see that man, the deep workings of whose bosom had been so strangely displayed before me.

CHAPTER III.

MARIA GRACIAS.

As I was quitting the gateway of Guy's Hospital with a fellow-student, he commenced the following narrative respecting a patient whose case had been regarded by both of us with more than ordinary interest: "She was found sitting on a doorstep in a narrow alley, somewhere about the Seven Dials. It was considerably past midnight, and the sound of her moaning attracted the notice of the watchman, who had just returned to his beat, having been drawn away for some time by an alarm of fire in a neighbouring lane. When addressed, she continued her groans, in the intervals uttering some words unintelligible to the man, who, in the belief that she was drunk, had her conveyed to one of the police stations on a stretcher. Her condition being at once evident there, she was forthwith conducted to the hospital, and the matron sent to me to let me know it was my turn to have the case.

"On entering the ward I perceived she was asleep, and, turning on the gas, I stood looking at her for several minutes, fixed to the spot. She was a most beautiful woman. Not even the wan and anxious look, nor the other peculiarities to be expected from her situation, could for one moment conceal even a trait of her extraordinary loveliness-and it was a style of beauty, too, I had not seen for many years.

"She lay in a tranquil slumber, with her face turned toward me, and one arm laid over the bed-clothes. The clean cap which the nurse had hastily placed on her head was too large, and had come off; it now hung round her neck by the strings, partly confining her beautiful black hair,

which, however, bursting forth from above and below, wantoned in rich curled and wavy masses all over the pillow. Her eyes were closed, the large black pupils appearing in a soft shade through the thin, delicate lids, beneath which their glances of passion or feeling were now sleeping, while the long dark lashes mingled together like fringes of silken filaments. Her skin was soft, and velvet-like, beautifully pale, a shade of brownish red on each round cheek, altering in richness of tint with every breath she drew. Her lips were of the finest cherry red, and were slightly parted, disclosing an even row of teeth. Methought while I looked a faint smile played over them-yes, it was so. Alas, poor girl; her mind had travelled many a league, and was far away in her own sunny land!

"My eyes now wandered to the arm that lay on the counterpane. It was beautifully shaped; the hand was so particularly; it was small and plump, with long tapering fingers, and a tiny dimple over the knuckle at the root of each. The appearance of the hand and elbow at once made it plain to me that they had never been employed at any menial labor. Anon as I looked, a twitch passed over her face, as if from internal pain; it passed off, and the same placid expression returned: it had disturbed her, however; and slowly and indolently she opened her eyes and gazed around her. There was in them, at first, an expression of surprise, then wonder and fear, as, travelling round the still, quiet ward, they at length rested upon me, as I stood leaning over the low iron bedstead, and hanging on with my arms to the cord over it.* By and by, recollection seemed to dawn slowly and gradually upon her; a feeling of where she was, and why she was there, seemed to come full upon her; she turned to the wall, covered her face with her hand, and groaned aloud in very bitterness. Oh, the deep, low, prolonged a-ah,' that seemed as if drawn piecemeal from the inmost recesses of a crushed heart!

"I was with her at intervals throughout the day, and the following night, and next morning placed a beautiful infant in her bosom.

"The short time she was in the hospital she had won her way into the hearts of the matron and nurse. At first they thought her stubborn, from her not answering their questions, but when the found she understood no English, the sympathies of their womanly hearts were excited in a tenfold degree in favor of this poor daughter of the south, alone and unprotected in a land of strangers, and that too at a period of her being when friends and protection were most in need; and again and again, to their oftrepeated little kindnesses, would the dulcet 'gracias-muchas gracias' of the beautiful Spanish woman float around in the full golden tones of her own magnificent language.

"I was convinced of her country from the first, and began hammering up as much Spanish as three months in a counting-house at Seville had given me, with a view to find out something of her history. All my at

* In most hospitals there is a strong cord that hangs from a hook in the ceiling over each bed; it has a cross stick at the end of it, by grasping which the patient, if weak, is enabled more readily to change his position in bed, or even materially to alleviate the feeling of pain.

tempts, however, were fruitless. I seemed by my inquiries but to augment the mental agony she was evidently suffering, while the sweetness of temper with which she bore it so excited my compassion that at length I ceased to importune her. The day I was called to her I managed to ask her if she was not from Spain ?

"Es verdad, senor.'

"And what made you leave your home, my good girl?'

"She buried her face in the clothes, and sobbed as if her heart would break; alas, poor thing, it was already broken!

"When her child was laid beside her she became more calm, and smiled upon the little creature with a look of such forlorn affection, that I saw the tears rising in the eyes of the worthy Mrs. Bland; and when she lavished upon it words of endearment in her own tongue, and pressed it fondly to her, upon my life I thought I had caught the infection.

During the two days she had been with us she had taken no food, refusing everything the kind-hearted nurse offered her, save some wine and water, with which she moistened her lips occasionally. I was a little troubled at this. I asked her why she did not eat: she made no reply, but covered her face and cried. I pressed some food upon her, announcing to her the simple fact that if she did not eat she would die. "Bueno, senor-nada deseo sino morir-I only want to die.' "Why, my poor thing, may I ask?'

"Oh gran Dios!-Francisco ha me abandonado-Francisco has abandoned me!'

"And who is Francisco ?'-But my question was lost in the paroxysm of grief to which she gave way.

"I waited for a while, and then told her that if she did not take food she could have no nourishment for her little daughter.

"As soon as I could make her understand me, she appeared struck with some thought, and quietly took the food I offered her.

"She was now getting on tolerably well, and I was flattering myself upon working out a speedy elucidation of the mysteries with which I had been bothering my brains, when the second night after I was called to the hospital, and found my interesting patient about to go from me for ever. Symptoms had occurred which I need not explain, and on my arrival I found she was sinking rapidly. Dr. A- had been sent for, and was already there, doing all that mortal man could for her, but without avail. I told him her brief story. He was much moved.

"I bent over her-she was murmuring something. I listened-she was praying.

"O Maria Santissima!-mia hija-O Dios mio !-no la abandones jamas-Heavenly Father, be thou a father to my poor infant!'

I listened attentively:

"A few minutes passed-what was that? I shuddered as I heard it— it was that fearful sound that tells that hope is gone. "She spoke again: Adios, feliz Espana!' 'Adios, Francisco-mi a-ma-do-Ad-i- !' "Oh woman, woman, is his name the last sound on your living lips! -his, who has been your utter ruin in this world, and who, we pray Heaven, may not be your eternal ruin in the next? Such is woman's love!"

CHAPTER IV.

THE TREASURER.

My fellow-student and I were both dressers in the same ward at Guy's; we also lodged together. One evening I said to him,—

"Well, I think that odd fellow who lies in No. 7 (alluding to the number of his bed) is one of the most singular characters that ever came under my hands: what a wiry fellow he must have been once on a day; a regular Jack Sheppard; small, slight, and sinewy, and as active as a cat! What a curious square red night-cowl is that he sports! A rum sort of fellow, certainly. He has taken a great fancy to me; he says I am not so proud as the other students, and seems inclined to be communicative. It seems he has been in both the services, and you can't mention a place or a thing but he is sure to have something to say about it. 1 was much amused by an account he gave me the other day of touching for water at some wild place on the coast of Africa, and finding his way into a lodge of black freemasons, not one of whom had ever seen a white face before, except in a vision of Old Nick or Mumbo Jumbo."

Why bless you, man, that is but a joke to what I have heard! He makes a regular confidant of me. It was only yesterday, when I had done dressing his limb, he began a long rigmarole, and as we had no lecture from Addison, I pulled out my note-book, and filled up the space with a report of the story."

"Let's have it."

"Stop a moment. Oh, here it is. Now, as I read, fancy you hear him talking." I then went on.

It was the time of the first American war. I was a small shaver then, you may believe; I played the triangle in the band of the regiment. My father was a lance-corporal in that corps, and a decent married man; very different in that particular from what his son turned out to be. Well, one autumn evening we were lying encamped on Hounslow-heath, along with a Scotch regiment, Lord Reay's Fencibles, I think; I remember it well, though everything thereabout is changed now. Very different times were those from the present. Highway robberies were as common about the heath as blackberries, and a murder or two occasionally lent an agreeable variety to the course of events. Now, while we lay on the heath, it came into the bandmaster's head that I would make an excellent drum-boy; and consequently I, with two other small chaps like myself, were put under the care of a drummer, and sent out of hearing of the camp to acquire the noble science of which, I believe, he was an eminent master. Nothing pleased me better than this; we used to go on the long sunny days, rattling away like blazes, and march up and down the country foraging upon the natives in the way of everything eatable, and entertaining them with a flourishing tattoo by way of reckoning.

One day we rambled far across the heath till we came to a place where there were a number of scattered clumps of trees; but they have all been removed and the ground enclosed thirty years ago. However, at the time I speak of, there they were, and a most lonely place it was not a human face had we seen in an hour's wandering; and the song of the lark, or the cawing of the rooks, was the only sound that interrupted the sweet music we were every now and then knocking out of the drum. Oh! so well as I mind every mark of that spot, and the long, dreamy, warm day, and the bramble-berries, and the birds (one of us had a long pistol, and we had plenty of cartridges, which we had picked up when dropped by the men during inspection), and the lonely road that wound along at a little distance, without a living creature upon its surface: but everything is altered now. Well, we had roved about among these clumps of trees for a long while, and at last we came to where three or four magnificent beeches stood, nearly in a straight line, and as we began to feel a little hungry, it was thought that some beech-mast would be acceptable.

We stood at the foot of one of the trees-it was even and unbroken for a good way up, and then suddenly forked away into two sets of branches. Well, I made no more ado, but up into the tree I scrambled, while the others stood looking at me, till, as I was clambering into the fork of the branches, the mark I presented was too strong a temptation for the self-denial of the drummer a wild scoundrel-he was afterwards flogged and sent to Jamaica for stealing a cat-'o-nine-tails to whip a grocer with in Canterbury; so he lets fly a big pebble, and hits me just right usre. Now, though there was not much danger of broken bones in the blow, yet the pain and the loud laugh the young vagabonds set up enraged me so much that I immediately looked round for something with which to send back my love to them.

Standing then right in the division of the tree, my eye was caught by a hollow in the wood just in the fork where the two branches parted at my feet. It had apparently been produced by the weather, or by some disease in the timber, and was filled up with leaves, bits of bark, chips of wood, and several good heavy pebbles, which last were my immediate object. These I speedily sent buzzing about the ears of my friends below, who forthwith beat a hasty retreat. Yet I still continued to empty the hole with a vague feeling of curiosity as to its depth, till, as I was taking out a copious handful of leaves and dust, something glittering at tracted my eye. It was the clasp of a large, dark morocco pocket-book, the sides bulging out as if it were well filled, and the leather much frayed, apparently from constant use. My curiosity and wonder were now stimulated to a most intense degree. I turned the pocket-book over, and beneath it found a glittering heap that made my heart jump with astonishment, delight, and a feeling of fear.

There lay a long purse of brown netted stuff, secured by two massive rings of what I now know to have been tortoiseshell. One end of it was actually crammed with yellow guineas, shining brightly through the distended network, the other contained a few pieces of silver. Beside it lay a lady's bag purse of green velvet, with little green tassals at the corners and a heavy gold clasp. It also was well filled. Beside these lay