beach their voices were loud and gay; we could hear the hoarse laughter of the men, and the playful shrieks of the village girls. When within a few oars length of the landing place the din increased, and jests and greetings were exchanged between the shore and the boat. "These madcaps will run her on the cross!" said an old villager who stood beside me, pointing to a heap of rocks rising above the surface a little way from the beach, and surmounted by a wooden beacon. At these words I darted forward, and raising my arms in a cautioning attitude, cried out to them to take care, but the words were lost in their laughter, and the gesture unnoticed by all except Marion; who, not having heard what I said, immediately rose, and with the light, firm step, that had bounded over the wilds of America, sprung across the planks, and in an instant stood on the prow. Her arms were stretched playfully towards me, love and happiness sparkled in her dark eyes -the boat struck on the cross-there was a plash in the water. Blind, infatuated madman, I rushed in-far beyond my depth-seized on my Marion, when with admirable intrepidity she was just in the act of raising herself upon the rocks, and dragged her to the bottom!

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The wind and the tide were both outward. I was saved almost by miracle-but she-O if the waves had but left me her corse! The sea has been known to give up its dead-new life has been breathed into the cold motionless forms that appeared to have been buried for ever in their watery grave. I would have clasped her in my arms I know she would have heard my voice! I would have opened her heavy eyelids -I would have unclosed her dumb lips, and with the warm kisses of immortal love awakened her from the fearful trance of death! But I have

done. The spell was broken, the predestined victim was offered up. I have, since then, been often on the sea-but with changed feelings. My way has been across its wildest path: my hand has been on its mane in its most terrible mood; I have traversed the wildest desarts of America, I have followed the footsteps of Marion to her favourite haunts, along the hills she loved when a child, and left-a sacrifice to destiny and me. And here in the very cottage where she lived from her infancy, I have sat down as in a continuing city, to rest from my wanderings until the hour comes when place and time shall be nothing.

THE SCARF:

OR,

NATURAL MAGIC.

THERE are few things in this world more pleasant than, after a separation of some years, to find one's legs under the same table with an ancient chum, a well-executed fire flinging the while its ruddy, good-humoured smile across the pale light of the wax, and a bottle of irreproachable claret voyaging with virtuous punctuality round the table. Far be the envious ear of wife from such tête-à-tête, sacred to the innocent reminiscences of youth; and far the insidious eyes of sister or daughter!

Sir James Ackfield thought he had never been so happy in his life, as during the volunteer visit of his early friend Ormond, of which it is my hint to speak.' They had been school-fellows,

and what is more, camerados, during the interesting years which immediately succeed the tyranny of Quintus Horatius Flaccus. It may therefore be supposed, that their topics for conversation were not easily exhausted. Very different however had been the fortunes of the Baronet and his friend, since the days of lang syne.' Sir James had hardly attained his majority when he succeeded to the paternal estate, and had hardly mourned the usual time for this misfortune, when he married the daughter of his next neighbour. Since that period, the only important occurrences in his life, were the birth of a daughter, the only child, and, some years subsequently, the death of his wife-not to mention now and then a more than usually capital good chase, an occasional prosecution under the game laws, or a speech at a county dinner.

Ormond, on the other hand, unfortunately had no estate to succeed to; but having some friends and a very little money, it was thought that he might in time have acquired one, but for a train of those equivocal occurrences which, in our own history, we set down as misfortunes, and in that of other people, as the effects of imprudence. He had now attained an age when one cannot, strictly speaking, be called a young, or an old, or even a middle-aged, man-he was thirty-five. He had been twelve years engaged in the active

business of life; the fire of youthful enthusiasm, that once burned brightly in his dark eye, was dimmed, if not quenched; his face bore testimony to the influence of warmer suns and ruder weather, and one untimely wrinkle on a once polished brow told tales of early care. He had thus the appearance of being somewhat more than his real age; and few people, turning from him to the round, ruddy, John Bullish face, full blue eye, and clear forehead, of his friend Sir James, would have supposed that the latter was senior by at least half a dozen years; yet this was the case.

It was not without a sigh that Ormond, in the pauses of conversation, surveyed the elegant apartment in which they were seated. Without any of the pride, pomp, and circumstance of fashion, there was yet a substantial richness about the whole, united with that singular air of comfort, which is still to be found in the mansions of some of our country gentlemenand which the fanaticism of high-life with heroic self-denial refuses to enjoy. The fire burned brightly, his host smiled cheerily, and the bloodred wine' went round joyously—but without there was rain and storm and darkness; and Ormond could not help thinking of the contrast, as bearing some resemblance to his own fate, compared with that of his friend. One, how