to dwell upon facts, which had begun to fade from it; the memory of old times became vivid, and more vivid-I felt a strong desire to revisit the scenes of my native village-of the young loves of Rosamund and her Clare.

A kind of dread had hitherto kept me back; but I was restless now, till I had accomplished my wish. I set out one morning to walk-I reached Widford about eleven in the forenoon-after a slight breakfast at my Innwhere I was mortified to perceive, the old landlord did not know me again(old Thomas Billet-he has often made angle rods for me when a child)—I rambled over all my accustomed haunts.

Our old house was vacant, and to be sold. I entered, unmolested, into the room that had been my bed-chamber. I kneeled down on the spot where my little bed had stood-I felt like a child-I prayed like one-it seemed as though old times were to return again; I looked round involuntarily, expecting to see some face I knew-but all was naked and mute. The bed was gone. My little pane of painted window, through which I loved to look at the sun, when I awoke in a fine summer's morning, was taken out, and had been replaced by one of common glass.

I visited, by turns, every chamber-they were all desolate and unfurnished, one excepted, in which the owner had left a harpsichord, probably to be soldI touched the keys-I played some old Scottish tunes, which had delighted me when a child. Past associations revived with the music-blended with a sense of unreality, which at last became too powerful-I rushed out of the room to give vent to my feelings.

I wandered, scarce knowing where, into an old wood, that stands at the back of the house-we called it the wilderness. A well-known form was missing, that used to meet me in this place-it was thine, Ben Moxam-the kindest, gentlest, politest, of human beings, yet was he nothing higher than a gardener in the family. Honest creature, thou didst never pass me in my childish rambles, without a soft speech, and a smile. I remember thy goodnatured face. But there is one thing, for which I can never forgive thee, Ben Moxam; that thou didst join with an old maiden aunt of mine in a cruel plot, to lop away the hanging branches of the old fir-trees. I remember them sweeping to the ground.

I have often left my childish sports to ramble in this place-its glooms and its solitude had a mysterious charm for my young mind, nurturing within me that love of quietness and lonely thinking, which have accompanied me to maturer years.

In this wilderness I found myself after a ten years' absence. Its stately firtrees were yet standing, with all their luxuriant company of underwood--the squirrel was there, and the melancholy cooings of the wood-pigeon; all was as I had left it-my heart softened at the sight-it seemed, as though my character had been suffering a change, since I forsook these shades.

My parents were both dead; I had no counsellor left, no experience of age to direct me, no sweet voice of reproof. The Lord had taken away my friends, and I knew not where he had laid them. I paced round the wilderness, seeking a comforter. I prayed, that I might be restored to that state of innocence, in which I had wandered in those shades.

Methought, my request was heard; for it seemed, as though the stains of manhood were passing from me, and I were relapsing into the purity and simplicity of childhood. I was content to have been moulded into a perfect child. I stood still, as in a trance. I dreamed, that I was enjoying a personal intercourse with my heavenly Father; and, extravagantly, put off the shoes from my feet-for the place where I stood, I thought, was holy ground.

This state of mind could not last long; and I returned, with languid feelings, to my Inn. I ordered my dinner-green peas and a sweetbread-it had been a favourite dish with me in my childhood-I was allowed to have it on

my birthdays. I was impatient to see it come upon table-but, when it came, I could scarce eat a mouthful; my tears choked me. I called for wine-I drank a pint and a half of red wine-and not till then had I dared to visit the churchyard, where my parents were interred.

The cottage lay in my way-Margaret had chosen it for that very reason, to be near the church-for the old lady was regular in her attendance on public worship-I passed on-and in a moment found myself among the tombs.

I had been present at my father's burial, and knew the spot again-my mother's funeral I was prevented by illness from attending--a plain stone was placed over the grave, with their initials carved upon it-for they both occupied one grave.

I prostrated myself before the spot; I kissed the earth that covered them— I contemplated, with gloomy delight, the time when I should mingle my dust with theirs and kneeled, with my arms incumbent on the grave-stone, in a kind of mental prayer-for I could not speak,

Having performed these duties, I arose with quieter feelings, and felt leisure to attend to indifferent objects. Still I continued in the churchyard, reading the various inscriptions, and moralizing on them with that kind of levity, which will not unfrequently spring up in the mind, in the midst of deep melancholy.

I read of nothing but careful parents, loving husbands, and dutiful children. I said jestingly, where be all the bad people buried? Bad parents, bad husbands, bad children--what cemeteries are appointed for these? do they not sleep in consecrated ground? or is it but a pious fiction, a generous oversight, in the survivors, which thus tricks out men's epitaphs when dead, who in their life-time discharged the offices of life, perhaps, but lamely? Their failings, with their reproaches, now sleep with them in the grave. Man wars not with the dead. It is a trait of human nature, for which I love it.

I had not observed, till now, a little group assembled at the other end of the churchyard; it was a company of children, who were gathered round a young man, dressed in black, sitting on a gravestone.

He seemed to be asking them questions-probably, about their learningand one little dirty ragged-headed fellow was clambering up his knees to kiss him. The children had been eating black cherries-for some of the stones were scattered about, and their mouths were smeared with them.

As I drew near them, I thought I discerned in the stranger a mild benignity of countenance, which I had somwhere seen before- I gazed at him more attentively.

It was Allan Clare! sitting on the grave of his sister.

I threw my arms about his neck. I exclaimed Allan," he turned his eyes upon me he knew me-we both wept aloud-it seemed as though the interval, since we paited, had been as nothing-I cried out, "Come, and tell me about these things."

I drew him away from his little friends-he parted with a show of reluctance from the churchyard-Margaret and her granddaughter lay buried there, as well as his sister-I took him to my Inn-secured a room, where we might be private-ordered fresh wine-scarce knowing what I did, I danced for joy.

Allan was quite overcome, and taking me by the hand he said, "This repays me for all."

It was a proud day for me-I had found the friend I thought dead-earth seemed to me no longer valuable, than as it contained him; and existence a blessing no longer than while I should live to be his comforter.

I began at leisure, to survey him with more attention. Time, and grief, had left few traces of that fine enthsuiasm which once burned in his countenance -his eyes had lost their original fire, but they retained an uncommon sweetness, and, whenever they were turned upon me, their smile pierced to my heart.

"Allan, I fear you have been a sufferer." He replied not, and I could not press him further. I could not call the dead to life again.

So we drank, and told old stories-and repeated old poetry-and sung old songs-as if nothing had happened. We sat till very late-I forgot that I had purposed returning to town that evening-to Allan all places were alike—I grew noisy, he grew cheerful-Allan's old manners, old enthusiasm, were returning upon him-we laughed, we wept, we mingled our tears, and talked extravagantly.

Allan was my bedfellow that night—and we lay awake, planning schemes of living together under the same roof, entering upon similar pursuits ;-and praising GOD that we had met.

I was obliged to return to town the next morning, and Allan proposed to accompany me. "Since the death of his sister," he told me, "he had been a wanderer.

In the course of our walk, he unbosomed himself without reserve-told me many particulars of his way of life for the last nine or ten years, which I do not feel myself at liberty to divulge.

Once, on my attempting to cheer him, when I perceived him over thoughtful, he replied to me in these words:

"Do not regard me as unhappy, when you catch me in these moods. I am never more happy than at times, when by the cast of my countenance men judge me most miserable.

My friend, the events, which have left this sadness behind them, are of no recent date. The melancholy, which comes over me with the recollection of them, is not hurtful, but only tends to soften and tranquillize my mind, to detach me from the restlessness of human pursuits.

The stronger I feel this detachment, the more I find myself drawn heavenward to the contemplation of spiritual objects.

"I love to keep old friendships alive and warm within me, because I expect a renewal of them in the World of Spirits.

"I am a wandering and unconnected thing on the earth. I have made no new friendships, that can compensate me for the loss of the old-and the more I know mankind, the more does it become necessary for me to supply their loss by little images, recollections, and circumstances, of past pleasures.

"I am sensible that I am surrounded by a multitude of very worthy people, plain-hearted souls, sincere, and kind. But they have hitherto eluded my pursuit, and will continue to bless the little circle of their families and friends, while I must remain a stranger to them.

"Kept at a distance by mankind, I have not ceased to love them-and could I find the cruel persecutor, the malignant instrument of GOD's judgments on me and mine, I think I would forgive, and try to love him too.

"I have been a quiet sufferer. From the beginning of my calamities it was given to me, not to see the hand of man in them. I perceived a mighty arm, which none but myself could see, extended over me. I gave my heart to the Purifier, and my will to the Sovereign Will of the Universe. The irresistible wheels of destiny passed on in their everlasting rotation, and I suffered myself to be carried along with them, without complaining."

CHAPTER XII.

ALLAN told me, that for some years past, feeling himself disengaged from every personal tie, but not alienated from human sympathies, it had been his taste, his humour he called it, to spend a great portion of his time in hospitals and

lazar-houses.

He had found a wayward pleasure, he refused to name it a virtue, in tending

a description of people, who had long ceased to expect kindness or friendliness from mankind, but were content to accept the reluctant services, which the oftentimes unfeeling instruments and servants of these well-meant institutions deal out to the poor sick people under their care.

It is not medicine,—it is not broths and coarse meats, served up at a stated hour with all the hard formalities of a prison, it is not the scanty dole of a bed to die on-which dying man requires from his species.

Looks, attentions, consolations,-in a word, sympathies, are what a man most needs in this awful close of mortal sufferings. A kind look, a smile, a drop of cold water to the parched lip-for these things a man shall bless you in death.

And these better things than cordials did Allan love to administer--to stay by a bedside the whole day, when something disgusting in a patient's distemper has kept the very nurses at a distance-to sit by, while the poor wretch got a little sleep-and be there to smile upon him when he awoke-to slip a guinea, now and then, into the hands of a nurse or attendant-these things have been to Allan as privileges, for which he was content to live, choice marks, and circumstances, of his Maker's goodness to him.

And I do not know whether occupations of this kind be not a spring of purer and nobler delight (certainly instances of a more disinterested virtue) than ariseth from what are called friendships of sentiment.

Between two persons of liberal education, like opinions, and common feelings, oftentimes subsists a vanity of sentiment, which disposes each to look upon the other as the only being in the universe worthy of friendship, or capable of understanding it,-themselves they consider as the solitary receptacles of all that is delicate in feeling, or stable in attachment:—when the odds are, that under every green hill, and in every crowded street, people of equal worth to be found, who do more good in their generation, and make less noise in the doing of it.

It was in consequence of these benevolent propensities I have been describing, that Allan oftentimes discovered considerable inclinations in favour of my way of life, which I have before mentioned as being that of a Surgeon. He would frequently attend me on my visits to patients; and I began to think, that he had serious intentions of making my profession his study.

He was present with me at a scene-a death-bed scene-I shudder, when I do but think of it.

CHAPTER XIII.

I WAS sent for the other morning to the assistance of a gentleman, who had been wounded in [a] duel,—and his wounds by unskilful treatment had been brought to dangerous crisis.

The uncommonness of the name, which was Matravis, suggested to me, that this might possibly be no other than Allan's old enemy. Under this apprehension, I did what I could to dissuade Allan from accompanying mebut he seemed bent upon going, and even pleased himself with the notion, that it might lie within his ability to do the unhappy man some service. So he went with me.

When we came to the house, which was in Soho Square, we discovered that it was indeed the man-the identical Matravis, who had done all that mischief in times past-but not in a condition to excite any other sensation than pity in a heart more hard than Allan's.

Intense pain had brought on a delirium-we perceived this on first entering the room-for the wretched man was raving to himself-talking idly in mad, unconnected sentences,-that yet seemed, at times, to have a reference to fast facts.

One while he told us his dream. "He had lost his way on a great heath, to which there seemed no end-it was cold, cold, cold-and dark, very dark— an old woman in leading-strings, blind, was groping about for a guide"-and then he frightened me,-for he seemed disposed to be jocular, and sung a song about an old woman clothed in grey," and said he did not believe in a devil."

Presently he bid us "not tell Allan Clare "-Allan was hanging over him at that very moment, sobbing. I could not resist the impulse, but cried out, This is Allan Clare-Allan Clare is come to see you, my dear sir." The wretched man did not hear me, I believe, for he turned his head away, and began talking of charnel houses, and dead men, and "whether they knew anything that passed, in their coffins."

Matravis died that night.

Mrs. Leicester's School.

[Under the title of "Mrs. Leicester's School: or, the History of Several Young Ladies, related by themselves," Mary Lamb brought out, in 1807, a collection of ten little homely narratives, seven of which were her own and the remaining three her brother's. These three, here subjoined, as integral portions of the works of Charles Lamb, follow, in due chronological sequence, the novelette of "Rosamund Gray." Mrs. Leicester's School" was first published as a four shilling volume at the Juvenile Library, No. 41, Skinner Street. It ran into a second edition in 1808, into a third in 1810, and into a fourth in 1814, attaining the dignity of a tenth in 1828.]

MARIA HOWE.

THE EFFECTS OF WITCH STORIES

I WAS brought up in the country. From my infancy I was always a weak and tender-spirited girl, subject to fears and depressions. My parents, and particularly my mother, were of a very different disposition. They were what is usually called gay. They loved pleasure, and parties and visiting; but, as they found the turn of my mind to be quite opposite, they gave themselves little trouble about me, but upon such occasions generally left me to my choice, which was much oftener to stay at home, and indulge myself in my solitude, than to join in their rambling visits. was always fond of being alone, yet always in a manner afraid. There was a book-closet which led into my mother's dressing-room. Here I was eternally fond of being shut up by myself, to take down whatever volumes I pleased, and pore upon them,—no matter whether they were fit for my years or no, or whether I understood them. Here, when the weather would not permit my going into the dark walk (my walk, as it was called) in the garden,-here, when my parents have been from home, I have stayed for hours together, till the loneliness, which pleased me so at first, has at length become quite frightful, and I have rushed out of the closet into the inhabited parts of the house, and sought refuge in the lap of