there less steep and rugged than at any place they had passed. At a short distance before her Jane perceived, glimmering through the trees, a faint light. "Heaven be praised!" said she, "that must be John's cottage."

As they came nearer the dog barked; and the old man, coming out of the door, signed to Jane to sit down on a log, which answered the purpose of a rude door-step; and then speaking to crazy Bet, in a voice of authority, which, to Jane's utter surprise, she meekly obeyed-" Take off," said he, "you mad fool, them jinglements from your head, and stroke your hair back like a decent christian woman; get into the house, but mind you, say not a word to her."

Crazy Bet entered the house, and John, turning to Jane, said, "You are an angel of goodness for coming here to-night, though I am afraid it will do no good; but since you are shall see her."

here, you

"See her! see what, John ?" interrupted Jane.

"That's what I must tell you, miss; but it is a piercing story to tell to one that looks like you. It's telling the deeds of the pit to the angels above." He then went on to state, that a few days before, he had been searching the mountains for some medicinal roots, when his attention was suddenly arrested by a low moaning sound, and on going in the direction from which it came, he found a very young looking creature, with a new-born infant, wrapped in a shawl, and lying in her arms. He spoke to the mother, but she made no reply, and seemed quite unconscious of every thing, till he attempted to take the child from her; she then grasped it so firmly, that he found it difficult to remove it. He called his wife to his assistance, and placed the infant in her arms. Pity for so young a sufferer, nerved the old man with unwonted strength, and enabled him to bear the mother to his hut.

There he used the simple restoratives his skill dictated; but nothing produced any effect till the child, with whom the old woman had taken unwearied pains, revived and cried. "The sound," he said, "seemed to waken life in a dead body." The mother extended her arms, as if to feel for her child, and they gently laid it in them. She felt the touch of its face, and burst into a flood of tears, which seemed greatly to relieve her; for after that she took a little nourishment, and fell into a sweet sleep, from which she awoke in a state to make some explanations to her curious preservers. But as the account she gave of herself was, of necessity, interrupted and imperfect, we shall take the liberty to avail ourselves of our knowledge of her history, and offer our readers a slight sketch of it.

CHAPTER X.

Death lies on her like an untimely frost,
Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

ROMEO AND JULIET.

THE name of the stranger was Mary Oakley. Her parents had gone out adventurers to the West Indies, where, at the opening of flattering prospects, they both died victims to the fever of the climate, which seldom spares a northern constitution. Mary, then in her infancy, had been sent home to her grandparents, who nursed this only relic of their unfortunate children with doting fondness. They were in humble life; and they denied themselves every comfort, that they might gratify every wish, reasonable and unreasonable, of their darling child. She, affectionate and ardent in her nature, grew up impetuous and volatile. Instead of 'rocking the cradle of reposing age,' she made the lives of her old parents resemble a fitful April day, sunshine and cloud succeeding each other in rapid alternation. She loved the old people tenderly— passionately, when she had just received a favour from them; but, like other spoiled children, she never testified that love by deferring her will to theirs, or suffering their wisdom to govern her childish inclinations.

She grew up

"Fair as the form that, wove in fancy's loom,

Floats in light vision round the poet's head."

Most unhappily for her, there was a college in the town. where she lived, and she very early became the favourite belle of the young collegians, whose attentions she received with delight, in spite of the remonstrances and entreaties of her guardians, who were well aware that a young and beautiful creature could not, with propriety or safety, receive the civilities of her superiors in station, attracted by her personal charms.

David Wilson, more artful, more unprincipled than any of his companions, addressed her with the most extravagant flattery, and lavished on her costly favours. Giddy and credulous, poor Mary was a victim to his libertinism. He soothed her with hopes and promises, till, in consequence of the fear of detection in another transaction, where detection would have been dangerous, he left and returned to his mother's, without giving Mary the slightest intimation of his departure. She took the desperate resolution of following him. She felt certain she should not survive her confinement, and hoped to secure the protection of Wilson for her infant. Her tenderness, we believe, more than her pride, induced her to conceal her miseries from her only true friends. She thought any thing would be easier for them to bear than a knowledge of her misconduct; and for the few days she remained under their roof, and while she was preparing a disguise for her perilous journey, she affected slight sickness and derangement. They were alarmed and anxious, and insisted on making a bed for her in their room: this somewhat embarrassed her proceedings; but, on the night of her escape, she told them, with a determined manner, that she could only sleep in her own bed, and alone in her own room. They did not resist

her; they never had. Mary kissed them when she bade them good-night with unusual tenderness. They went sorrowing to their beds. She wrote a few incoherent lines, addressed to them, praying for their forgiveness; expressing her gratitude and her love; and telling them, that life before her seemed a long and a dark road, and she did not wish to go any farther in it, and begging them not to search for her, for in one hour the waves would roll over her. She placed the scroll on the table, crept out of her window, and left for ever the protecting roof of her kind old parents.

When they awoke to a knowledge of their loss, they were overwhelmed with grief. Their neighbours flocked about them, to offer their assistance and consolation; and though some of the most penetrating among them suspected the cause of the poor girl's desperation, more forbearing and kind than persons usually are in such circumstances, they spared the old people the light of their conjectures.

Poor Mary persevered in her fatiguing and miserable journey, which was rendered much longer by her fearfully shunning the public road. She obtained a kind shelter at the farmers' houses at night, where she always contrived to satisfy their curiosity by some plausible account of herself. At the end of a week she arrived, wearied and exhausted, in the neighbourhood of Wilson. She watched for him in the evening, near his mother's house, and succeeded in obtaining an interview with him. He was enraged that she had followed him, and said that it was impossible for him to do any thing for her. She told him she asked nothing for herself; but she entreated him not to add to his guilt the crime of suffering their unhappy offspring to die with neglect. Utterly selfish and hard-hearted, the wretch turned from her without one word of kindness and then recollecting that if she was