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When all was beauty, then have I,
With friends on whom my love is flung,
Like myrrh on winds of Araby,

Gazed up where evening's lamp is hung;
And, when the beauteous spirit there 1
Flung over me its golden chain,
My mother's voice came on the air,
Like the light dropping of the rain,
Showered on me from some silver star:
Then, as on childhood's bended knee,
I've pour'd her low and fervent prayer,
That our eternity might be,

To rise in heaven, like stars at night,
And tread a living path of light.

I have been on the dewy hills,

When night was stealing from the dawn And mist was on the waking rills,

And tints were delicately drawn

In the gray east; when birds were waking,
With a slow murmur in the trees;
And melody by fits was breaking

Upon the whisper of the breeze;
And this, when I was forth, perchance,
As a worn reveler from the dance;
And when the sun sprang gloriously
And freely up, and hill and river

Were catching, upon wave and tree,
The subtile arrows from his quiver;

I say, a voice has thrilled me then,
Heard on the still and rushing light,
Or creeping from the silent glen,

Like words from the departing night,
Hath stricken me, and I have pressed

On the wet grass my fevered brow, And, pouring forth the earliest,

First prayer, with which I learned to bow,
Have felt my mother's spirit rush

Upon me, as in by-past years,
And, yielding to the blessed gush
Of my ungovernable tears,
Have risen up-the gay, the wild-
As humble as a very child.

N. P. WILLIS,

LESSON V.

FEMALE HEROISM.

WHEN the tyranny and bigotry of the last James drove his subjects to take up arms against him, one of the most formidable enemies to his dangerous usurpations was Sir John Cochrane, (ancestor of the present Earl of Dundonald,) who was one of the most prominent actors in Argyle's rebellion. For ages, a destructive doom seemed to have hung over the house of Campbell, enveloping in a common ruin all who united their fortunes to the cause of its chieftains. The same doom encompassed Sir John Cochrane. He was surrounded by the king's troops. Long, deadly, and desperate was his resistance; but, at length, overpowered by numbers, he was taken prisoner, tried, and condemned to die upon a scaffold. He had but a few days to live, and his jailer only waited the arrival of his death-warrant, to lead him forth to execution. His family and his friends had visited him in prison, and exchanged with him the last, the long, the heart-yearning farewell. But there was one who came not with the rest to receive his blessing; one who was the pride of his eyes and of his house; even Ellen, the daughter of his love.

Twilight was casting a deeper gloom over the gratings of his prison-house, he was mourning for a last look of his favorite child, and his head was pressed against the cold, damp walls of his cell, to cool the feverish pulsations that shot through it like stings of fire, when the door of his apartment turned slowly on its unwilling hinges, and his keeper entered, followed by a young and beautiful lady. Her person was tall and commanding; her eyes dark, bright, and tearless; but their very brightness spoke of sorrow, of sorrow too deep to be wept away; and her raven tresses were parted over an open brow, clear and pure as the polished marble. The unhappy captive raised his head as they entered.

"My child! my own Ellen!" he exclaimed, and she fell upon his bosom. My father! my dear father!" sobbed the

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miserable maiden, and she dashed away the tear that accompanied the words. "Your interview must be short, very short," said the jailer, as he turned and left them for a few minutes together. "God help and comfort thee, my daughter!"

added Sir John, while he held her to his breast, and printed a kiss upon her brow; "I had feared that I should die without bestowing my blessing on the head of my own child, and that stung me more than death; but thou art come, my love, thou art come! and the last blessing of thy wretched father—” "Nay, forbear! forbear!" she exclaimed," not thy last blessing! not thy last! My father shall not die !"

"Be calm, be calm, my child," returned he. "Would to Heaven that I could comfort thee, my own! my own! But there is no hope; within three days, and thou and all my little ones will be—” Fatherless, he would have said, but the word died on his tongue. "Three days?" repeated she, raising her head from his breast, but eagerly pressing his hand, "three days? then there is hope! my father shall live! Is not my grandfather the friend of Father Petre, the confessor and the master of the king? From him he shall beg the life of his son, and my father shall not die." "Nay, nay, my Ellen,” returned he, "be not deceived; there is no hope; already my doom is sealed; already the king has sealed the order for my execution, and the messenger of death is now on the way."

"Yet my father shall not--shall not die!" she repeated emphatically, and clasping her hands together. "Heaven speed a daughter's purpose!" she exclaimed, and turning to her father, said calmly, "we part now, but we shall meet again." "What would my child?" inquired he, eagerly, and gazing anxiously on her face. "Ask not now," she replied, my father, ask not now, but pray for me, and bless me-but not with thy last blessing." He again pressed her to his heart, and wept upon her neck. In a few minutes the jailer entered, and they were torn from the arms of each other.

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On the evening of the second day after the interview we have mentioned, a wayfaring man crossed the drawbridge at Berwick from the north, and proceeding along Marygate, sat down to rest upon a bench by the door of an hostelry, on the south side of the street, nearly fronting where what was called the "Main-guard" then stood. He did not enter the inn, for it was above his apparent condition, being that which Oliver Cromwell had made his head-quarters a few years before, and where, at a somewhat earlier period, James the Sixth of Scot

land had taken up his residence, when on his way to enter on the sovereignty of England.

The traveler wore a coarse jerkin, fastened round his body by a leathern girdle, and over it a short cloak, composed of equally plain materials. He was evidently a young man, but his beaver was drawn down so as almost to conceal his features. In one hand he carried a small bundle, and in the other a pilgrim's staff. Having called for a glass of wine, he took a crust of bread from his bundle, and after resting for a few minutes, rose to depart. The shades of night were setting in, and it threatened to be a night of storms. The heavens were gathering black, the clouds rushing from the sea, sudden gusts of wind were moaning along the streets, accompanied by heavy drops of rain, and the face of the Tweed was troubled.

"Heaven help thee! if thou intendest to travel far in such a night as 'this,” said the sentinel at the English gate, as the traveler passed him, and proceeded to cross the bridge. In a few minutes he was upon the wide, desolate, and dreary moor of Tweedmouth, which, for miles, presented a desert of furze, fern, and stunted heath, with here and there a dingle covered with thick brushwood. He slowly toiled over the steep hill, braving the storm, which now raved with the wildest fury. The rain fell in torrents, and the wind howled as a legion of famished wolves, hurling its doleful and angry echoes over the heath. Still the stranger pushed onward, until he had proceeded two or three miles from Berwick, when, as if unable longer to brave the storm, he sought shelter among some crab and bramble bushes by the wayside.

Nearly an hour had passed since he sought this imperfect refuge, and the darkness of the night and the storm had increased together, when the sound of a horse's feet was heard, hurriedly splashing along the road. The rider bent his head to the blast. Suddenly his horse was grasped by the bridle: the rider raised his head, and the stranger stood before him, holding a pistol to his breast. "Dismount," cried the stranger, sternly. The horseman, benumbed, and stricken with fear, made an effort to reach his arms, but in a moment the hand of the robber, quitting the bridle, grasped the breast of the rider, and dragged him to the ground. He fell heavily on his face, and for several minutes remained senseless. The stran

ger seized the leathern bag which contained the mail to the north, and flinging it on his shoulder, rushed across the heath.

Early on the following morning the inhabitants of Berwick were seen hurrying in groups to the spot where the robbery had been committed, and were scattered in every direction over the moor, but no trace of the robber could be obtained.

Three days had passed, and Sir John Cochrane yet lived. The mail which contained his death-warrant had been robbed, and before another order for his execution could be given, the intercession of his father, the Earl of Dundonald, with the king's confessor, might be successful. Ellen now became almost his constant companion in prison, and spake to him words of comfort. Nearly fourteen days had passed since the robbery of the mail had been committed, and protracted hope in the bosom of the prisoner, became more bitter than his first despair. But even that hope, bitter as it was, perished. The intercession of his father had been unsuccessful; and, a second time, the bigoted and would-be despotic monarch had signed the warrant for his death, and within little more than another day that warrant would reach his prison. "The will of Heaven be done!" groaned the captive. "Amen!" responded Ellen, with wild vehemence; "yet my father shall not die.”

Again the rider with the mail had reached the moor of Tweedmouth, and, a second time, he bore with him the doom of Sir John Cochrane. He spurred his horse to his utmost speed; he looked cautiously before, behind, and around him, and in his right hand he carried a pistol, ready to defend himself. The moon shed a ghostly light across the heath, which was only sufficient to render desolation dimly visible, and it gave a spiritual embodiment to every shrub. He was turning the angle of a straggling copse, when his horse reared at the report of a pistol, the fire of which seemed to dash into its very eyes. At the same moment, his own pistol flashed, and his horse rearing more violently, he was driven from the saddle. In a moment the foot of the robber was upon his breast, who bending over him, and brandishing a short dagger in his hand, said, "Give me thine arms, or die!" The heart of the king's servant failed within him, and without

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