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of care on that young brow, the dimmed lustre of those beautiful eyes, told a sadder tale.

We had just finished breakfast, and were standing by the window looking out upon the wild and luxuriant scenery around, when Lord Maningham, accompanied by another gentleman, appeared riding furiously up the avenue. He kissed his hand to us, and on his entrance introduced his companion as Dr. Ap Griffith, a physician of some celebrity I felt my sister shudder as he approached.

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"Bella, dear," said her husband, you will consult this gentleman for my sake?"

"What would I not do to please you!" replied the gentle girl, placing her hands in his. "But indeed you unnecessarily agitate yourself, I am not so very ill.”

"I knew it!" said his Lordship, looking triumphantly at me, "nevertheless, my love, talk to the Doctor, as I have had the trouble of fetching him."

He led her to a seat, and then taking my arm we quitted the room. As we waited in the library for the Doctor, he continued to exclaim against the folly of telling people that they were ill; and offered to lay me any wager, that before the summer was half over, Isabel would look as blooming as one of her favourite roses. But his animation was evidently forced and unnatural. At length Ap Griffith joined us.

"Well Doctor," said his Lordship, starting up; but he paused and turned deadly pale as he caught the doubtful expression of that gentleman's face, "she is ill then-merciful God!-perhaps she is dying!"

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"My Lord," replied the Doctor, "this is a fearful stroke, but you must strive to bear it as becomes a man and a christianLady Maningham is in the last stage of a decline and cannot live much longer. Her constitution, naturally delicate, has I fear been much shaken by over excitement and agitation."

"Do not curse me De Lisle!" said Maningham, in a hoarse and broken voice. "I have destroyed your sister!" He sank at my feet in happy insensibility, as it saved him from madness, which would have followed this severe shock on a mind so illregulated as his.

Lord Maningham's alarming illness now called for all our care and attention. Isabel disobeyed the Doctor's injunctions and insisted on watching by the bedside of the sufferer, and, when I would have remonstrated, she turned her pleading eyes to me, and said

"Do not separate me from Walter, dear brother! it is but

little longer we shall have in this world to be together!" Though I felt that she was wasting what little strength still remained to her, I could not refuse this request.

It was nearly a week after my arrival; I was sitting reading the Scriptures to her, as she sat by the side of the unconscious invalid-her weary head resting on the same pillow with hiswhen she exclaimed

"He is waking! oh my dear brother, I think Walter recognizes me !"

She bent tenderly over him and kissed his damp forehead; the sick man took both her hands in his, and pressed them convulsively to his lips and heart-while tears escaped from his closed eyes, and stole down his pallid cheeks.

"I dream't sweetest that I was to lose thee!" he said, in a low voice, drawing her yet closer to him. "Say it was a dream Bella!"

She shook her head mournfully, but could not speak.

"Are you too in a league to deceive me?" continued her impetuous husband. "Do you wish to drive me mad?-to kill me? or are you only exercising your boundless power over my heart?" "Be satisfied," he added, in a tone of subdued tenderness," it breaks for thee Bella!-it breaks for thee!"

She soothed him with affectionate words, and besought him to try and sleep; she even attempted to sing to him; but her broken and altered voice seemed only the more powerfully to agitate the sufferer. He slept at length, and from that time began gradually to recover. For hours he would gaze on the fading form of his young and idolized wife-haunting her steps like a shadow, anticipating her wants, reading every unexpressed wish in her varying countenance. He would sit at her

feet, and hang on every tone of her low sweet voice, as if he feared it would be the last; and when the rich hectic mantled on her cheek he mistook it for the returning bloom of health, called on us to congratulate him, and shake hands with the Doctor, assuring him that he was quite mistaken in his prognostications. But when that deceitful flush disappeared from her pallid face, he gave way to the wildness of despair—cursing himself as her destroyer, and frantically imploring her forgiveness.

Weeks passed away and my sister's birth-day came; a gladsome time that had once been to us all-now there was no rejoicing, no presenting of trifles, rendered valuable by a kind glance and an affectionate word.

"Have you no offering for me Walter?" she tenderly enquired.

He turned sadly away from her and answered, “none!" "Nor you Edward?"

I gave her a white rose, fit emblem of her own sinless purity. She kissed it and placed it in her bosom; and some time afterwards, pointing to it, said

"Your flower is fading, brother! it will soon be gone!"

Maningham tore away the withered leaves and replaced it from a vase which stood near him.

"When you return home Edward," said Isabel," tell my dear father and mother that I never forgot them, even for a moment; that my only regret was that I could not see them once again! Console them for my loss, and speak comfort to them! Alas, my husband! my poor Walter, who shall comfort thee?"

She flung herself into his arms, and they wept together. At length, turning her sweet face to me and resting her head on his shoulder, she said

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Now, dear brother, read us a prayer."

She held one of Walter's hands clasped in her's and prayed with me. Presently missing her gentle voice, I looked upshe had fallen a little forward-there was a holy smile on her parted lips-but the spirit which once animated those meek soft eyes had fled for ever.

"Thus lived, thus died she, never more on her
Shall sorrow light, or shame; she was not made
Thro' years, or moons, the inner weight to bear
Which colder hearts endure, until they are laid
By age in earth."

E. Y.

SONG.

How smiling the flowers appear!
How playful the zephyrs pass by!
How gay is the Spring of the year!
How bright and serene is the sky!
See Nature with angel-like face,
In her pleasing and sportive array,
Simplicity, Beauty, and Grace

Adorn the fair bosom of May.

Come, Rosa, away we will rove,

At the first rosy blush of the morn,

And list to the musical grove

That awakes at the peep of the dawn.

We will cull from the bosom of May!
The flowers that smiling appear,
"Tis a season for youth to be gay,
"Tis the fairest of all in the year.

Come, Rosa, and do not for shame,
Give up any more to repose
Than is fitting for Nature to claim,
When abroad with such beauty she glows.
Leave the sluggard and pamper'd at home,
The victims of sloth and despair;

Through meadows and groves we will roam,
While youth and the morning are fair!

The slaves of the City may toil,

As toiling they were for the grave 'Tis enough at their fate to recoil,

And our hearts we will never enslave.

We will cull from the bosom of May,
The flowers that smiling appear;

'Tis a season for youth to be gay,

'Tis the fairest of all in the year.-J. KINDER.

THE MARTYR'S HYMN.

BY THE AUTHOR OF RAINBOW SKETCHES," ETC.

On with ye to the stake-my hope, my trust,
Is centred not in things of earth and dust;
On with ye to the fire-deem not I fear,
Or shame, or woe, or pain, or sorrow here
On with ye to the axe-I follow on

To the great prize the Lord my Saviour won.

The spirit of my God is o'er me now,

A holy courage lighteth heart and brow;

I hear the music of a heavenly throng,

Freed from the thought of suffering and of wrong, And there, oh! there, my spirit fain would be Bending before an unveiled Deity!

Despots, ye cannot quell me-tho' the fire

Be lit in your unconquerable ire,

My hope is centred in all things above
My thoughts are fixed upon my
"Sun of Love,"
And when I rest beneath the silent clod
I know my soul shall glory in its God!

HISTORICAL RETROSPECT.

No. 1.-MAY DAY.

"I have seen the Lady of the May

Sit in an arbour (on a holy day)

Built by the May-pole, where the jocund swains
Dance with the maidens to the bag-pipes strains,
When envious night commands them to begone,
Call for the merry youngsters one by one,
And for the well performance, soon disposes,
To this a garland interwove with roses,

To that a carved hooke, or well-wrought scrip;
Gracing another with her cherry lip;

To one her garter; to another, then,

A handkerchiefe, cast o'er and o'er again;
And none returneth emptie that hath spent
His pains to fill their rural merriment."

Brown's Pastorals.

THE month of May is usually represented by a sweet and amiable countenance, clad in a robe of pure white and green, embroidered with daffodils, hawthorns, and blue bells. Milton celebrates it, as does Shakespeare, when he says:

"On a day, alack the day

Love whose month is ever May
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air."

The first of May was, " in times of old," consecrated both to the Goddess Flora, and the Queen of Love, and was the rustic holiday of our forefathers who were accustomed to celebrate it with joyous diversions and festive revelry. In those days— "The lords of castles, mannors, townes, and towers Rejoyc'd when they beheld the farmers flourish, And woulde come downe unto the summer bowers To see the country-gallants dance the morrice."

Shortly after midnight the lads and lasses left their villages and retired to the woodlands, by sound of music, where they gathered the May, or blossomed branches of the trees, and bound them with wreaths of flowers; then returning by sunrise, they decorated the lattices and doors of their dwellings with garlands of "the sweet smelling spoil of their joyous journey," and spent the remainder of the day in sports and pastimes. In the villages they danced during the day, round the Maypole, which afterwards remained during the whole year untouched, except by the seasons, a faded emblem and a consecrated offering to the Goddess of Flowers.

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