"Is it à l'outrance?" asked Mademoiselle Duparc.

"A l'outrance!" exclaimed Marotte and Estelle in a breath.

"You shall not murder each other, then!" shrieked Louise. "I will prevent it."

And before they could hinder her, she was off at the top of her speed. "Quick! quick!" cried Marotte," or she will give the alarm, and we shall be interrupted." At the same moment she threw herself into position, and Estelle did the same.

The combatants were well matched; but Marotte was the cooler of the two. Had it been a stage-fight, she could not have parried her rival's thrusts, and riposted more dexterously. It would have been ludicrous, but for the serious purpose of the affair, could a male spectator have seen the two young women in their theatrical costumes, which allowed free motion to the limbs, advancing and retreating, thrusting and parrying, with the skill of practised duellists.

"This for your cutting me out of Madelon !" said Estelle, with a vigorous flanconnade.

"That for spoiling my last scene in the ballet!" retorted Marotte, with a thrust in tierce.

"Be cool, Estelle !" cried her second.

It was too late. Estelle had laid herself open by a furious lunge over Marotte's guard. Unable to recover herself in time, she received her adversary's point in the sword-arm; and, falling on one knee, lowered her blade in token of submission.

"This will teach you better manners another time, Mademoiselle des Urlis," said Marotte as she wiped her sword. "Ha! Louise has given the alarm, as I feared. Save yourself!”

She darted off through the trees which bordered the alley, as Louise, who had in vain sought Madame de Maintenon, came up, followed by some of the Garde Royale, and accompanied by the Marchioness of Brinvilliers, whom she had encountered passing along the terrace, on her way to the ball. They found poor Estelle faint and bleeding; whilst Mademoiselle Duparc was in vain trying to staunch the blood, which darted freely in jets from a wounded artery in her arm. With a severe reprimand, and a threat of the King's displeasure, the Marchioness consigned Estelle to the guards, who, raising her up, quietly turned towards the château, accompanied by her second and Louise.

They had scarcely departed, when, as she was about to turn on her way to the Bosquet de Bal by one of the cross avenues, a voice that thrilled her called, in a low tone, “Marie!”

A man advanced from the trees, and she directly saw that it was Sainte-Croix! His face looked ghastly in the moonbeams, and his eyes gleamed with a light that conscience made demoniac in the eyes of the Marchioness.

"You here!" she exclaimed.

"Where should I be but in the place of rejoicing just now?" replied Gaudin, through his set teeth, and with a sardonic smile. "I am this moment from Paris. We are free!"

"My father?" cried the Marchioness, as a terrible expression overspread her countenance.

"He is dead," returned Sainte-Croix; "and-we are free!"

There was a pause, and they looked at each other for nearly a minute.

Come," at length said the Marchioness ;-" Come. To the ball !”

LINES ON THE DECEASE OF LAMAN BLANCHARD.

WORN out by toils that kept his brain at strife,
Divorced by death from her who was his life,-
Frantic, through prostrate hopes and desolate hearth,
He struck the blow that sever'd him from earth.
One burst of tyrant grief, not to be borne,

Drove out all thought, and rush'd to what we mourn.
Yet, ere the final act was wildly done,
(That act which was eternity begun!)

His parting reason, staying its sad flight,
Had paid deep homage to the Lord of light!

Ye friends, who in his social joys had part,-
Ye children, living off-sets from his heart,-
Ye whom his wit and playful fancy charm'd,
Or whom his love parental cheer'd and warm'd,
Oh! do not, for that one last act, despair-
Trust that God heard the antecedent prayer!
What was itself oblivion, oh, forget!

And, whom in life ye cherish'd, love him yet!

G. D.

THE SONG OF THE WITCHES ROUND THE WALNUT-TREE* OF BENEVENTUM.

HAIL to thee,

Weird walnut-tree!

All hail to thee! all hail to thee!

We are come, we are come, we are come from afar,

By the glancing light of the shooting-star;

Some from the south, and some from the north,
From the east, and the west, we are all come forth,-

Some o'er the land, and some o'er the sea,

To hold our sabbath 'neath the weird walnut-tree,
That tree of the awful and mystic spell,

Where we dance the roundels we love so well.

The gentle witch of Capua, who comes of a gentle kind,

Hath floated softly hither on the wings of the western wind;

The gentle witch, whose witcheries the Capuan youth beguile,

With her arching brows, and her cherry lips, and her everchanging smile :

But, though beauteous, and fair, and gentle she be,

She must come and bend to the weird walnut-tree.

And Medea is here from her Colchian home,

A dragon she rides through the white sea-foam.
Look at her eye with its cold blue glare;

As lief rouse a lioness from her lair.

But, though murd'ress and fratricide she may be,
She must come and bend to the weird walnut-tree.

And who is the seer with the locks so white,

The wrinkled brow, and the eye so bright?

The celebrated and immemorial rendezvous of the witches. The winged serpent attached to it was long worshipped in those parts.

KK 2

His tottering limbs have been hither borne
By a magic staff of the wild blackthorn,
And from Vetulonia's halls wends he,

To come and bend to the weird walnut-tree.
Perimeda is here, with the golden hair,
Beauteous, and blooming, and buoyant, and fair;
She has come in a car drawn by peacocks three,
To bend at the shrine of the weird walnut-tree.
And the fairy Calypso has sped from her home;
She has left her grotto and hyacinth flowers,-
Her fruit-trees, and birds that sing all the day long,—
Her gardens, and violet-scented bowers;

In a nautilus-shell, so pearly and clear,

She has sailed from her isle in the Grecian Sea,

To join in our mystic roundels here,

And bend to the wondrous walnut-tree.

Hecate, hail! Hecate, hail!

Far hast thou travell'd o'er hill and dale;
By the dead man's tomb thou hast stopped to alight,
Where the Lemures gibber the livelong night,

And the ghoules eat the corpse by the wan moonlight,
For such are the scenes where thou takest delight.

Hail to thee, Hecate, once and twice!

And hail to thee, Hecate; hail to thee thrice!

The Queen of Hades' realm is here,

Bow to her, wizard, and witch, and seer!

But, though the Queen of Hades she be,

She must come and bend to the weird walnut-tree.
And Gerda has hurried from far Iceland,

She of the ruthless and red right-hand;

A kraken has carried her o'er the sea,

To come and bend to the weird walnut-tree.
We are come, we are come, we are come from afar,
By the glancing light of the shooting star;
Some from the south, and some from the north,
From the east and the west we are all come forth;
Some o'er the land, and some o'er the sea,

To hold our sabbath 'neath the weird walnut-tree.
Then a song to the tree, the weird walnut-tree;

The king and the chief of trees is he ;

For, though ragged, and gnarl'd, and wither'd, and bare,

We bow the knee, and we offer the prayer

To the weird walnut-tree on the mystic night,

When we hold our sabbath 'neath the pale moonlight.

Hail to Taburnus, that mount of power,

And to Sabatus' stream in this witching hour!

And hail to the serpent who twines round the tree,
Whose age is known but to wizards three,

Who was brought from the land of ice and snow
By Saturn, in ages long, long ago,

And who sucks the blood of one of our band,

Whene'er 'neath the tree we take our stand.

Hail to them each, and hail to them all!

Ho! come with a whoop, and a shout, and a call!
Join hand in hand, and foot it full free,

Let us bound and dance round the walnut-tree.
Elelen! Elelen! Evoë! Evoë!

For the witches who leap round the weird walnut-tree.

C. H. L.

HARROWGATE.

BY HENRY CURLING, ESQ.

WHAT scenes of life have we not beheld at Harrowgate! what days of romance, and nights of revelry and excitement, have we not passed at the far-famed Dragon, even a quarter of a century back, when on that bare, Scotchified looking common, were assembled, in the huge stone-built halls, with their terraces and gardens, which constituted the hotels of the place, half the fashion and beauty of the kingdom; where the great sporting men of the day met; where mothers trotted out their daughters in all their charms, and country squires (who had mentally resolved to be unconnubial) learnt the trick of wiving; where fortunes were won by the turn-up of a card by old dowagers, whilst their "radiant and exquisite daughters" lost their hearts to some lord of sash and epaulette in the dance.

The Dragon at Harrowgate (in those days) was unlike any other table d'hôte of the time; it was more like some nobleman's seat, where the élite of the world of fashion had been invited to spend the summer months. A constant succession of guests were continually arriving and departing; and there were personages whose names were familiar amongst the aristocracy of the land, and where, consequently, in place of the pinched and crabbed manners of the present day, were to be found hearty old English manners, sociality, good feeling, and jollity.

But few perhaps of the present generation can recollect Harrowgate much before the period we are writing of, though, doubtless, there are some old stagers who can remember those choice and master spirits of the place who were wont to keep the table in a roar, when old Goodlad was host of the Green Dragon, during whose administration it was almost as impossible for a parvenu, or a party without four horses and liveried attendants to match, to gain a footing at the hotel, as at that time it would have been for himself to become member for a close borough.

At the Dragon in those days there was generally some prima donna who led the ton, some queen-bee of the hive who ruled the roast (if we may so term it), a sort of lady-patroness of high rank; to offend whom would be to subject oneself to be cashiered by the gay assemblage. Her glance of approval or rejection would, indeed, be certain either to sanction the introduction of a new-comer into the crême de la crême of the circle, or keep them at so uncomfortable a distance, that they would be frozen into the necessity of seeking the warmer climates of either of the other houses on the neighbouring

common.

If we are writing our annals truly, and memory does not fail us, there were, in our time, four hotels at this celebrated watering-place, namely, The Dragon, The Granby, The Queen's Head, and The Crown. These houses bore the several nicknames of The House of Commons, The House of Lords, The Hospital, and the Manchester Warehouse. The Granby (which stood upon the heath towards the pleasant town of Knaresborough), and which, with its fine shrubberies and pleasant gardens, looked like some Yorkshire hall, was called The House of Lords. There the most staid and straight-laced, and

the invalided portions of the aristocracy resorted. The Dragon, again, which stands in the Ripon Road, just at one end of the common, pleasantly situated, with its garden and terrace, amongst the verdant fields, was yclept The House of Commons. There the sporting gentry of the day, the great turf men, mixed up with a sprinkling of the aristocracy, and the old country families, together with parties from the north Highland lairds, and rollicking blades from the Emerald Isle, met together year after year, and kept up one continued revel during the season; the assemblage being, almost without exception, formed of people of condition, and character in the island.

The Crown was called The Hospital, and was situated in what constituted the town of Low Harrowgate. In appearance it was not unlike a receptacle for the sick, and was erected close beside a well of the most fœtid and foul-smelling water. This house was usually the resort of the water-drinking portion of the visitors, folks whose Bardolphic visages had caused a trial of this nauseous puddle to be recommended by the faculty. The Queen's Head was a long, irregular built Scotch-looking mansion, standing also upon the edge of the common, almost opposite The Granby; and, sheltered by a few tall trees, looked the diamond of the desert. This again was denominated The Manchester Warehouse, and was mostly tenanted by the trading portion of the company; the great Manchester millocrat, the rich pinmaker from Birmingham, the wealthy cutler from Sheffield, the iron-founder from Black Barnsley, the clothier from Leeds, and the moneyed man from Glasgow, Dundee, and Paisley; folks who dared not, at that period, attempt admission either into the Dragon or Granby, and who were hardly sufficiently assured in their position to venture even amongst the jewels of the Crown.

The Dragon was the house for those who came to seek for pleasure and amusement. Amongst the other diversions got up to beguile time, high play was constantly resorted to, and the card-room was usually filled with players at this period, with very little intermission during the twenty-four hours. There they sat-that infatuated and devoted clique-hour after hour in a recess to the right of the long room, which was called the "Tea-room." Some dozen tables were filled with the oddest of all the oddities of the play-men of the turf, the most celebrated sporting characters of that day, and perhaps the most determined amongst the gentlemen gamblers in England. They were also surrounded and attended, during their orgies, by a whole fraternity of betters,-men who, with cat-like watch, hovered over and flitted from table to table computing the chances, and calculating the odds of the different games.

So absorbed were some of the sporting part of the company in this vice, that we have known men pass a whole season in the card-room, with slight intermission, seated at those tables, morning, noon, and night. Whist constituted their world; and their utmost idea of happiness on this side the grave, consisted in four by honours and the odd trick. One or two of these devotees we remember, with parchment visage, and "lack-lustre eye," who would scarce give themselves time to eat, allowing but little for repose, and none for exercise. These persons would jump up at the sound of the dressing bell, make a hasty toilet, rush down stairs again, and even win or lose large sums in the short space of time before the bell again sounded for dinner. Whilst at table they would bolt their meals in a state of