and observing "I'm ruined!" again lit his meerschaum, and retired to his tranquil succumbency upon the sofa.

"Here, Mr. Jenkins," observed Mrs. J., bounding suddenly into the room a minute afterwards, "Give me a twenty pound note, will you. I've just been ordering home one or two little necessaries."

"Where am I to get it, my dear?" coolly enquired Jenkins. "From your strong-box, to be sure. Give me the key."

Jenkins did as he was desired. Mrs. Jenkins proceeded to open the box. "Why to my knowledge, Mr. Jenkins," she cried, petrified at finding it empty,-" to my knowledge, Sir, there were several hundred pounds in this box this very morning!"

"Yes, my dear, there were—exactly eight hundred pounds." "Where are they then, Mr. Jenkins? Don't think I'm to be trifled with. Where are they I say?" And the lady of the house shook the gentleman of the house vigorously, and disabled him from giving an immediate reply to her ferocious interrogatory, by depriving his lungs of their usual facility of

action.

"Baxter's got 'em," groaned Jenkins, looking red and imploring into the face of his wife.

"Who's Baxter ?" another shake, more awful.

"A jeweller, a poor one, with a large family and a sick wife. My creditor, a resolute one, without any patience." "Have you paid him ?" enquired Mrs. Jenkins, angrily. "There is his receipt."

"Write me a check on Drummond, then."

"I've overdrawn this month past.'

"How d'ye mean Mr. Jenkins?"

"I only mean that I'm ruined—a ruined man-that's all, my dear, nothing further."

It would be impossible for the human reader to imagine, even were it in my power to give him a Schillerian description of it, the enormous passion that Mrs. J. went into, on ascertaining that she had ruined her husband. Her physical structure groaned under the convulsion of her mental ferocity, as, proceeding towards the reclining and sudden pauper, she deposited the entire of her resentment into the knuckles of her right fist, and made a Sampson present of that inflamed weapon to the nose of her lord and master,-after which she informed him that he would never see her more, and rushed melo-dramatically from the apartment.

In the evening Jenkins ascertained that she had decamped, and taken his children with her. A letter left on his dressingtable, in her hand-writing, informed him, that "his children by his first wife had been all drowned in their passage to America, whither she had sent them under pretence of their crossing the channel for the benefit of a French education."

"Indeed!" observed Jenkins.

That "four thousand pounds, which she knew he intended depriving her of, had been discovered by her, concealed under the floor of the wash-house, and that she had put that into her purse on leaving him."

66

Humph !" observed Jenkins.

"That she advised him to get a situation under government." "Good!" observed Jenkins, "being now totally destitute, that is what I had better attempt."

Mrs. Jenkins is residing at her villa on the borders of the Lake of Geneva.

Jenkins is a clerk in the Post-office, where he has been this ten years, and a more industrious, quiet, and mild gentleman never stamped a letter.

MEMORY OF THE PAST.

Oh! there's nothing like the past, midst all the beautiful and bright,

With its smiles of vanish'd happiness, and memories of light;
It steals upon the spirit, like the song of former years,

Belov'd, ere worldly blights had taught the bitterness of tears.
What is the glow of present joy ?-a meteor's flitting beams;
Or, transient as the lotus-flowers which bloom on sun-lit
streams,

We feel amid its brightest smiles, how soon the dream must fade,

Leaving the heart it made its home, to droop beneath the shade.

Then there's nothing like the dreamy past,-the air-harp's bygone strain,

Is dear, for ah! we never more may hear it breathe again;
And thus it is with Memory, we love the faintest sigh

That links us with the glorious past, in dreams which never

die.

FAREWELL! OH, FAREWELL !

BY MISS ISABELLA T. MOXEY.

"FAREWELL! oh, farewell!" how lonely the feeling That throbs in my bosom when parting from thee; And sorrow-deep sorrow its pow'r is revealing,

Like the rays of the sun on the lone desert tree. Ah! though yet I've known but life's early morning, Think not that its course is unclouded and bright, Deem not that the sun is always adorning

Youth's beautiful season with lustre and light;Thus when the links of affection are broken

Links strengthened by kindness and hallowed by love, When the low words of parting are mournfully spoken, A cloud charged with grief seems to lower above.

I bid thee farewell with the silent emotion,

That speaks the unlinking of hearts that were one, So awfully still and calm seems the ocean,

Ere the storm and the tempest their wrath have begun. Thus is it with me-we have met, but oh! never

Again on this earth shall I meet thee the same, For Time's ruthless course, which the dearest can sever, May wither the feelings as well as the frame. Farewell!-not to think on the future were better,

When the hopes we long cherished have left but regret ; 'Mid the world's darkest frown, and its vain shining glitter, Forgotten I may be,-I ne'er can forget.

Edinburgh.