packet of work in the other, and was going | been very dear to me in early life - "O! Miss Halliwell, where 's Sarah?" she too dear, "He is a clergyman - the Reverend George Archer?" I whispered to Miss Graves. "Yes," she nodded. "How did you know?" I did not answer. Those old days were coming back to me as in a dream. I remembered my mother's home at Seaford, where we all lived so tranquilly; I remembered the first day that he came to it with my brother, both of them fresh from college; I remembered, "O, come and see! It is of no use trying for concealment now." And she seized my arm, and pulled me through the drawing-alas! alas! the love which sprang up between room. Miss Graves was getting up from the sofa, where she had retired to rest, and I set down my bundle and went with my candle into the bedroom. On the bed, his head raised high upon a pillow, lay a gentleman, his eyes closed, and his face still and white, whilst drops of blood were slowly issuing from his mouth. us, and the solemn engagement that ensued. I remembered his next visit, when he came to be installed as curate of Seaford, and the transient weeks of bliss that followed. I remembered, with a pang of the heart even then, that high-born girl, who had appeared amongst us as a vision of brightness, and how they were thrown together, and he grew "Is he dead?" I uttered, in the first shock to love her to infatuation. I remembered our of surprise. "Where's Sarah? where's Sarah?" was all the answer of Mrs. Archer. "We must have a doctor." "Sarah is in bed. I'll step and call her." "In bed! Then I'll go myseif." And, throwing on a shawl and bonnet, Mrs. Archer darted down the stairs, but stopped ere she reached the bottom, and looked up at me, who was lighting her. "The nearest surgeon where? "About ten doors higher up the road. You'll see the lamp over the door." "Ah, yes, I forgot; " and she flew on. followed her, for I remembered that the key of the gate was hanging up in the kitchen, and she could not get out without it. Then I called up Sarah, and went back into the room. "Who is this gentleman?" I whispered to Miss Graves. wretched parting when he left Seaford to follow her, and the subsequent account that reached us of her marriage with one in her own sphere, and his disgrace; for when the Earl of Seaford came to know that his sons' tutor had dared to love their sister, he thrust him from his house in civil scorn. And I had never seen or heard of him since, till this night, when I beheld him lying on a bed in my own house, and not long for this world. His wife returned with the doctor. He said the case was not so serious as we imagIined. That the blood came from a small vessel ruptured on the chest, not the lungs. I remained with Mrs. Archer that night. Sarah made a fire in the drawing-room, and we sat by it, while he dozed. She told me a good deal of her troubles, and sobbed bitterly. "Mr. Archer, my sister's husband," was her reply; and, just then, the invalid opened his eyes and looked at us. Never shall I forget that moment. The expression of those eyes flashed on the chords of my memory like a ray of light, and gradually I recognized the features, though they were worn and wasted. Archer? Archer? Yes, although the name had never struck me before as in connection with him, there could be no doubt. I was gazing on one who had "Has he been long here?" I asked, wondering how in the world he got smuggled in. "It was the day your pupils were going away," replied Mrs. Archer. "I was standing at the window, watching the carriage which had come to fetch some of them, when I saw my husband coming down the road, evidently looking out for the house. He appeared ill and thin, stooped, and walked as if his strength was gone, but I knew him, and flew down to the gate, which was open, as well as the house-door. As it happened, no one was in the hall when we came upstairs: I heard Sarah's voice on the upper flight; she was bringing down luggage, but she did not see us." "But you ought to have told me," I urged. "I know that," she rejoined, "and such a thing as taking him in clandestinely never entered my thoughts. It arose with circumstances. Look at our position: you positively refused to receive a gentleman here, but he had come, and how were we to remove to other lodgings, owing you what we do, bereft of means, next to bereft of food? So there he lay, ill, on that bed. Reproach me as much as you will, Miss Halliwell; turn us out into the road, if you must do it: it seems that little can add to my trouble and perplexity now. There have been moments lately when I have not known how to refrain from from-running away-and "And what?" I asked. 66 Why, I have thought the calm bed of a river would be to me as rest after toil." "Goodness me, Mrs. Archer!" I exclaimed half in surprise, half in a shock of indignation, 66 a Christian must never use such language as that, while there's a Heaven to supplicate for refuge. All who ask for strength to bear, find it there." 66 "I have had no happiness in my married life," she went on to say. It is-let me see six years since, now. Mr. Archer was a working curate in London: a weary life he led of it, in that large parish of poor. Soon after we married his health began to fail: he used to seem dispirited, and the duties were too much for him. I took it into my head that some sorrow was upon him, that he had never really loved me. I don't know. Once I taxed him with it, with both, but he seemed surprised, said he thought he had been always kind, as indeed he had, and I let the idea drop. His health grew worse, change of scene and air were essential to him, and he got an appointment as foreign chaplain, army chaplain I think it was, and went out with that Spanish legion. Later, I and my sister lost our money. My brother, with whom it was placed, failed, and we were deprived of our income. Latterly we have been living by -it is of no use to mince the matter - by pledging things, and now my husband is come home without his pay, and cannot get the arrears which are due to him. He says They must go out of the house, they must, Hester, even if we pay for lodgings for them. If he dies, and has to be buried from here, it will be the ruin of the school. Dear - dear! to think of its being George Archer ! How things do come about in this world!" Mrs. Archer wrote to her brother, doubting, however, his power to assist them, and at the end of a week there came a ten-pound note. Mr. Archer was better then. "Now I will not take any of it," I said to Mrs. Archer; you shall keep it to start afresh with in new lodgings, but you must leave these." 66 So that same afternoon she and her sister went out to seek some, and I took my work and went to sit with Mr. Archer, according to their request. He was sitting up in the easy-chair, the one which had been my dear mother's many a time had she sat in it, in the old days, talking to him. A queerish sort of feeling came over me, as I took my place opposite to him, for it was the first time we had been alone together; but I made myself very busy over my sewing. We talked about indifferent subjects, the weather, his medicine, and such like, when all at once he wheeled that chair closer to mine, and burst forth, in a low, deep tone: "Hester, have you ever forgiven me?" "Indeed, yes, long ago." "Then it is more than I have done by myself," he groaned. "But I was rightly served." I looked up at him and then down at my work again. "You heard, perhaps, how she jilted me. Hester, as true as that you are sitting there working, she drew me on; drew me on, from the first, to flirt with and admire her!" "You are speaking of " I stopped. "Her. Lady Georgina. Who else? And when she saw, as I know she did see, to what a passionate height my love was reaching, she fooled me more and more. I did not see my folly at the time, I was too infatuated, but I have cursed it ever since: as I dare say you have." "Hush! hush!" I interrupted. "And when it was betrayed to the earl, and he drove me away, to part with me, as she did, without a sigh, without a regret!" he went on, not deigning to notice my words. "Hester, you were well avenged." "Do not excite yourself, Mr. Archer." "How I got over those first few weeks I don't know, and shudder to remember. Then came her marriage: I read it in the papers. Heartless, wicked girl! and she had solemnly protested to me she did not care for Mr. Caudour. Well, well, troubles and mad grief do come to an end; and, thank God! so does life." "What was your career afterwards?" ness. I could do nothing. Remorse for my wild infatuation had taken heavy hold upon me, and a vast amount of misery was mixed up with it. Then, when I came to myself a little, I sought employment, and obtained the curacy of a parish in London, where the pay was little and the work great. Next, I married the lady had money, and I had need of many luxuries-or necessities, call them which you will-which my stipend would not obtain, for my health was failing. It grew worse. I think, if I had remained in London, I should have died there, and I went out to Spain." "From whence you have now returned?" "Yes-penniless; done out of the money coming to me. And now the sooner I die the better, for I am only a burden to others. I am closing a life that has been rendered useless by my own infatuated folly: my talents have been buried in a napkin, my heart turned into gall and wormwood. O Hester! again I say it, you are richly avenged." "Have you ever met since? "Her? Never. Her husband is Lord Caudour now. I saw the old baron's death in a stray newspaper that came out to Spain." "Here come your wife and Miss Graves," I said, for, having heard the garden-gate open, I rose and looked from the window. "How soon they are in again?" "Hester," he murmured, in an impassioned tone, as he seized my hand when I was about to pass him, intending to open the drawingroom door, "say you forgive me." I leaned down to him and spoke soothingly. "George, believe me, I have perfectly for given you: I forgave you long ago. That the trial to me was one of length and bitterness, it would be affectation to deny, but I have outlived it. Let me go. They are coming up the stairs." He pressed my hand between both of his, and then bent down his lips upon it, and kissed it as fervently as he had kissed my own lips that night, years, years before, when we were walking home from church together, behind my mother and Lucy. I drew it hurriedly from him, for they were already in the drawing-room, and a feeling, long buried, very like that forgotten love, cast a momentary sunshine on my heart: and I laughed at myself for being an old simpleton.. They had found lodgings, and he was transported to them. I cannot say but I was thankful when they left the honse. I fear they did not get on very well. We often sent them a good plate of something, under pretence of tempting his appetite, some slices of roast beef, or a tureen of nourishing broth with the meat in. Lucy would say we could not afford to do it, and Sarah loudly exclaimed against "cooking for other people;" but they were fellow-creatures, and in need — and he was George Archer. The summer put an end to his weary life. It happened, that same spring, it was in May, I had business at the house of one of our pupils, whose father was a tradesman in Bond-street. When very close to it, I found myself in the midst of a string of carriages, inside which were ladies in full evening dress, though it was only one o'clock in the day. Full of surprise, I asked a policeman what it meant. "The Queen's Drawing-room." To be sure. I wondered then I had not thought of it for myself. It happened to be the first time I had ever seen the sight, and I stood gazing at the rich dresses, the snowwhite feathers, and the lovely, lovely faces. The carriages had been stationary, but now there was a move, and then they were stationary again. More beautiful than any gone before was the inmate of the chariot now opposite to me; a fair, elegant woman, with a bright smile and haughty eye. Surely I knew the features! I did, alas for me! Though I had never seen them since she stepped, with her sinful fascinations, between | heart, and he was dying in his obscure lodgings, after a short career of regret and sorrow, whilst she who had caused all, who had me and my betrothed husband, I felt sure it was the Lady Georgina Seaford. "Do you know who this lady is?" I said sacrificed us both to her selfish vanity, was to the policeman, in a whisper. He looked at her, at the coronet on the carriage, and then at the servants, at their white coats and crimson velvet breeches. "I think," he answered, "it is the Lady Caudour." revelling in all the good that could make life happy. "O Father! Father!" I wailed forth, in the anguish of the retrospect which then pressed sharply upon me, “Thy blessings appear to be dealt out with an unequal hand. Time had passed lightly over her: her Nevertheless, may we still, and always, say, countenance was as smooth, as smiling, as free Thy will be done for Thy ways are not as from care as it had been in her girlhood. I our ways, and Thou knowest what is best was struggling through life with a lonely for us." FIVE MINUTES WITH THE ADVERTISERS. | wherefore? Why does the gentleman interfere THEY must have big Churches in Southamp-with the respectable tradesman's family? Why ton! This remark is forced from Mr. Punch does he recommend the man's wife to the care by the following advertisement, which a person of one or two children? Are children proper of the name of Brooks has put into one of the persons to take charge of her? Then, on the Southampton papers: IN HBUILDINGS, Mr. CHARLES BROOKS has one of the very best Houses FOR SALE, with a large pew in the centre aisle of All Saints' Church containing twelve good rooms, closet, and all suitable offices. A good garden and roomy summer-house, substantial, and in good order. The price required will be very moderate. other hand, why is great care to be taken of them? "And trust." What trust? what's trust? What does he mean? "No connection What precocious with any other children." children these one or two are! - first they take charge of a full-grown woman, and then they disavow connection with any other children. The last intimation is a pleasing proof that Finally, there is "no family of their own." virtue and moderation still dwell in Southamp- Whose own? The children's? The intrusive ton, though banished from most other places. gentleman's? Certainly, this is a wonderful For a pew with twelve rooms, a closet, and offi- composition. It does read like a scrap from one ces, many people would have asked a good deal of the Advertiser's inconceivable spasms of pa- · of money. We do not quite understand whether triotism, in which the writer is in such a fury the garden is also attached to the pew, but if so with despots and the like, that he cannot stop to it must be the celebrated Roman Catholic one, see on whose head his thundering adjectives fall, the Garden of the Soul. If all pews are so ex- but smashes everybody with a truly awful recktensive, we should think that a speaking-trum-lessness of relatives and antecedents. But it is pet must be carried up into the pulpit, together not remarkable that one Advertiser should rewith the sermon and a white pocket-handker- semble another. Punch. chief. The next Advertiser, to whose announcement Mr. Punch's attention has been called, states in another local paper that she "Desires a Situation as Housemaid in a pious or private family. The latter will be preferred. Address M. J., &c." Why our Housemaid prefers privacy to piety she will perhaps explain to the mistress to whom she applies. She has evidently never read Pietas Privata. Finally, comes an announcement in the Times, which for general muddle beats anything we have seen even a leader in the Advertiser. A GENTLEMAN wishes to RECOMMEND a highly res pectable TRADESMAN'S WIFE to the care of one or two children where great care will be taken of them and trust, in a healthy neighborhood, and no connection with any other children. No family of their own. Address, &c. Who, what, when, where, which, why, whence, THIS Stone that covers earth and claye The daye will pass, the night must come; Then feare not death, when, where, or howe SONG OF THE VERMONTERS: THE following spirited verses are taken from the Life of that brave man and true patriot, Ethan Allen. They were published in 1780, and allude to the contest then going on between Vermont, New York, and New Hampshire, with reference to the separate existence of Vermont as an independent state. The contest was kept up to the close of the Revolution. Congress being unable to settle it, General Washington took it in hand, and his candor and good sense effected, through Governor Chittenden, what Congress could not have done. - Columbus (Wis.) Reporter. [These lines are attributed, on what may be considered good authority, to John G. Whittier, the Quaker poet, and were not published in 1780, as above stated in the Columbus (Wis.) Reporter. From the desire not to offend the peace-loving fraternity with which the poet is connected, he has never claimed the authorship of this spirited lyric of his early days, which certainly does no discredit to his poetical genius. -New York Eve. Post.] Ho! all to the borders! Vermonters, come down, With your breeches of deer-skin and jackets of brown; With your red woollen caps, and your moccasins, come, To the gathering summons of trumpet and drum! Come down with your rifles!-let gray wolf and fox Yet we owe no allegiance; we bow to no throne; With their blue eyes of smiles, and their light flowing hair; All brisk at their wheels till the dark even-fall, Then blithe at the sleigh-ride, the husking, and ball! We've sheep on the hill-sides, we've cows on the plain, And gay-tasseled corn-fields, and rank-growing grain; There are deer on the mountains, and wood-pigeons fly From the crack of our muskets, like clouds in the sky. Or darts from his shelter of rock and of root At the beaver's quick plunge or the angler's pursuit. And ours are the mountains which awfully rise Till they rest their green heads on the blue of the skies; And ours are the forests, unwasted, unshorn, Save where the wild path of the tempest is torn. And though savage and wild be this climate of ours, And brief be our season of fruits and of flowers, Far dearer the blast round our mountains which raves Than the sweet summer zephyr which breathes over slaves. Hurrah for VERMONT ! for the land which we till Must have sons to defend her from valley and hill; Leave the harvest to rot on the field where it grows, And the reaping of wheat for the reaping of foes. Far, far from Michiscoui's valley, to where Poosoomsuck steals down from his wood-circled lair, From Shocticook river to Lutterlock townHo!-all to the rescue! Vermonters, come down! Come York, or come Hampshire-come traitors and knaves! If ye rule o'er our land, ye shall rule o'er our graves; Our vow is recorded - our banner unfurled; |
