nor were there wanting stories of the olden time, of low-born maidens married to youths of high estate, and raised from hut to hall, becoming mothers of a lordly line of sons, that were counsellors to Kings and Princes.

In Spring, Mr Howard went away for a few months—it was said to the great city—and on his return at midsummer, Lucy was to be his bride. They parted with a few peaceful tears, and though absent were still together. And now a letter came, saying that before another Sabbath he would be at the Fold. A few fields in Easdale, long mortgaged beyond their fee-simple by the hard-working statesman from whom they reluctantly were passing away, had meanwhile been purchased by Mr Howard, and in that cottage they were to abide, till they had built for themselves a house a little further up the side of the sylvan hill, below the shadow of Helm-crag. Lucy saw the Sabbath of his return and its golden sun, but it was in her mind's eye only; for ere it was to descend behind the hills, she was not to be among the number of living things.

Up Forest-Ullswater the youth had come by the light of the setting sun; and as he crossed the mountains to Grassmere by the majestic pass of the Hawse, still as every new star arose in heaven, with it arose as lustrous a new emotion from the bosom of his betrothed. The midnight hour had been fixed for his return to the Fold; and as he reached the cliffs above White-moss, according to agreement a light was burning in the low window, the very planet of love. It seemed to shed a bright serenity over all the vale, and the moon-glittering waters of Rydal-mere were as an image of life, pure, lonely, undisturbed, and at the pensive hour how profound! "Blessing and praise be to the gracious God! who framed my spirit so to delight in His beautiful and glorious creation-blessing and praise to the Holy One, for the boon of my Lucy's innocent and religious love!" Prayers crowded fast into his soul, and tears of joy fell from his eyes, as he stood at the threshold, almost afraid, in the trembling of life-deep affection, to meet her first embrace.

In the silence, sobs and sighs, and one or two long deep groans! Then in another moment, he saw, through the open door of the room where Lucy used to sleep, several figures moving to and fro in the light, and one figure upon its knees -who else could it be but her father! Unnoticed he became

one of the pale-faced company-and there he beheld her on her bed, mute and motionless, her face covered with a deplorable beauty-eyes closed, and her hands clasped upon her breast! "Dead, dead, dead!" muttered in his ringing ears a voice from the tombs, and he fell down in the midst of them with great violence upon the floor.

Encircled with arms that lay round him softer and silkier far than flower-wreaths on the neck of a child who has laid him down from play, was he when he awoke from that fitlying even on his own maiden's bed, and within her very bosom, that beat yet, although soon about to beat no more. At that blest awakening moment, he might have thought he saw the first glimpse of light of the morning after his marriage-day; for her face was turned towards his breast, and with her faint breathings he felt the touch of tears. Not tears alone now bedimmed those eyes, for tears he could have kissed away; but the blue lids were heavy with something that was not slumber-the orbs themselves were scarcely visible and her voice-it was gone, to be heard never again, till in the choir of white-robed spirits that sing at the right hand of God.

Yet no one doubted that she knew him-him who had dropt down, like a superior being, from another sphere, on the innocence of her simple childhood—had taught her to know so much of her own soul-to love her parents with a profounder and more holy love-to see, in characters more divine, Heaven's promises of forgiveness to every contrite heart-and a life of perfect blessedness beyond death and the grave. A smile that shone over her face the moment that she had been brought to know that he had come at last, and was nigh at hand and that never left it while her bosom moved-no-not for all the three days and nights that he continued to sit beside the corpse, when father and mother were forgetting their cares in sleep-that smile told all who stood around, watching her departure, neighbour, friend, priest, parent, and him the suddenly distracted and desolate, that in the very moment of expiration she knew him well, and was recommending him and his afflictions to the pity of One who died to save sinners.

Three days and three nights, we have said, did he sit beside her who so soon was to have been his bride; and come or go who would into the room, he saw them not-his sight was fixed

on the winding-sheet, eyeing it, without a single tear, from feet to forehead, and sometimes looking up to heaven. As men forgotten in dungeons have lived miserably long without food, so did he and so he would have done, on and on to the most far-off funeral day. From that one chair, close to the bedside, he never rose. Night after night, when all the vale was hushed, he never slept. Through one of the midnights there had been a great thunderstorm, the lightning smiting a cliff close to the cottage; but it seemed that he heard it not-and during the floods of next day, to him the roaring vale was silent. On the morning of the funeral, the old people-for now they seemed to be old-wept to see him sitting still beside their dead child; for each of the few remaining hours had now its own sad office, and a man had come to nail down the coffin. Three black specks suddenly alighted on the face of the corpse—and then off-and on-and away-and returning -was heard the buzzing of large flies, attracted by beauty in its corruption. “Ha-ha!” starting up, he cried in horror"What birds of prey are these, whom Satan has sent to devour the corpse?" He became stricken with a sort of palsy -and, being led out to the open air, was laid down, seemingly as dead as her within, on the green daisied turf, where, beneath the shadow of the sycamore, they had so often sat, building up beautiful visions of a long blissful life.

The company assembled but not before his eyes-the bier was lifted up and moved away down the sylvan slope, and away round the head of the Lake, and over the wooden bridge, accompanied, here and there, as it passed the wayside houses on the road to Grassmere, by the sound of psalms—but he saw -he heard not;—when the last sound of the spade rebounded from the smooth arch of the grave, he was not by-but all the while he was lying where they left him, with one or two pitying dalesmen at his head and feet. When he awoke again and rose up, the cottage of the Fold was as if she had never been born-for she had vanished for ever and aye, and her sixteen years' smiling life was all extinguished in the dust.

Weeks and months passed on, and still there was a vacant wildness in his eyes, and a mortal ghastliness all over his face, inexpressive of a reasonable soul. It scarcely seemed that he knew where he was, or in what part of the earth, yet, when left by himself, he never sought to move beyond the bounda

ries of the Fold. During the first faint glimmerings of returning reason, he would utter her name, over and over many times, with a mournful voice, but still he knew not that she was dead-then he began to caution them all to tread softly, for that sleep had fallen upon her, and her fever in its blessed balm might abate-then with groans too affecting to be borne by those who heard them, he would ask why, since she was dead, God had the cruelty to keep him, her husband, in life; and finally, and last of all, he imagined himself in Grassmere Churchyard, and clasping a little mound on the green, which it was evident he thought was her grave, he wept over it for hours and hours, and kissed it, and placed a stone at its head, and sometimes all at once broke out into fits of laughter, till the hideous fainting-fits returned, and after long convulsions left him lying as if stone-dead. As for his bodily frame, when Lucy's father lifted it up in his arms, little heavier was it than a bundle of withered fern. Nobody supposed that one so miserably attenuated and ghost-like could for many days be alive-yet not till the earth had thrice revolved round the sun did that body die, and then it was buried far away from the Fold, the banks of Rydal-water, and the sweet mountains of Westmoreland; for after passing like a shadow through many foreign lands, he ceased his pilgrimage in Palestine, even beneath the shadow of Mount Sion, and was laid, with a lock of hair-which, from the place it held, strangers knew to have belonged to one dearly beloved-close to his heart, on which it had lain so long, and was to moulder away in darkness together, by Christian hands and in a Christian sepulchre.

L'ENVOY.

PERIODICAL literature is a type of many of the most beautiful things and interesting events in nature; or say, rather, that they are types of it-the Flowers and the Stars. As to Flowers, they are the prettiest periodicals ever published in folio-the leaves are wire-wove and hot-pressed by Nature's self; their circulation is wide over all the land; from castle to cottage they are regularly taken in; as old age bends over them, his youth is renewed; and you see childhood poring upon them pressed close to its very bosom. Some of them are ephemeral—their contents are exhaled between the rising and setting sun. Once a-week others break through their green, pink, or crimson cover; and how delightful, on the seventh day, smiles in the sunshine the Sabbath Flower-a Sunday publication perused without blame by the most religious -even before morning prayer! Each month, indeed, throughout the whole year, has its own Flower periodical. are annual, some biennial, some triennial, and there are perennials that seem to live for ever—and yet are still periodical— though our love will not allow us to know when they die, and phoenix-like reappear from their own ashes. So much for Flowers-typifying or typified;-leaves emblematical of pages-buds of binding-dew-veils of covers-and the wafting away of bloom and fragrance like the dissemination of fine feelings, bright fancies, and winged thoughts.

Some

The Flowers are the periodicals of the earth-the Stars are the periodicals of heaven. With what unfailing regularity do the numbers issue forth! Hesperus and Lucifer! ye are one concern. The Pole-star is studied by all nations. How popular the poetry of the Moon! On what subject does not the Sun throw light? No fear of hurting your eyes by reading

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