"Yes-I believe-yes, I don't sing as well as usual, I believe," he answered, hemming down a sigh; "I have a cold, and my eyes are leaky too (wiping away a tear with his hand): but no matter, I am well, and monstrous happy; so let's in and eat a hearty dinner, Ellen, that is, I mean if we can."

The dinner was served up; and though Philip only appeared to eat heartily, Ellen ate with more appetite than usual. She had been contriving a plan to avoid a discovery of her situation, even should her infant live to come into the world; and though she almost envied Philip his increasing reputation, while hers was irre parably wounded, if not entirely destroyed, she rejoiced to think that her parents would find in him some consolation for their disappointment in her: and while this idea was uppermost in her mind, unusual cheerfulness lighted up her dim eye, and she did not attend to the anxious

expression on the countenance of her parents and her brother.

But dinner was scarcely over when Philip, who sat opposite the window, turned very pale, and exclaimed, “Shiver my topsails, but they are coming for me! and I doubt the poor lad is quite aground! Well, I am sorry for it, that I am."

"Who is coming for you?-who is dead?" cried Ellen; while the poor old man and woman, more dead than alive, hung round Philip, oppressed with grief too mighty to be expressed by words.

"Answer me!-what mystery is this?" continued Ellen with the tone and gesture of agony.

At this moment the officers of justice entered the room; and the foremost told. Philip he was their prisoner, as young Symonds was very bad, and, if he died, Philip must be indicted for wilful murder therefore, as murder was not a bailable offence, he must be committed imme

diately, and go on along with them to jail.

દ

Philip!" cried Ellen, seizing his arm,

"am not I the cause of all this?"

ઠંડ

"Avast, you there now,-what then? 'Twas not your fault-if the fellow spoke evil of you, and knocked down poor old father: though, to be sure, I did not mean to kill him, that I did not; but don't pipe about it, sister Ellen, pray don't; and as for their hanging of me, I don't believe a word of it."

He spoke, but Ellen heard it not; horror had suspended all her faculties: and though her unhappy parents groaned aloud in agony when the officers led Philip away, and though he himself, terrified at her situation, wept over her, and strained her in a parting embrace, she heard, she saw, she felt nothing, and her wretched parents were obliged to rouse themselves from the anguish which the apprehension of their son caused them, in order to

watch beside their senseless and apparently lifeless daughter.

But Ellen lived even through the agonies of this dreadful night. A second, a third, a fourth day elapsed, yet still Ellen was scarcely able to speak or move, though her senses were returned; and still young Symonds remained in danger, and Philip in prison. But the latter was not without his comforts there. The news of his de tention had reached Plymouth, and some of his messmates (for Philip was respected and beloved by the whole ship's crew) obtained leave of absence, and set off to visit him in his confinement. But when they heard why he was confined, their indignation knew no bounds; they declared the fellow deserved to die a thousand deaths, and they vowed that they would break open the prison and set him free; nor suffer their brave messmate to be laid in limbo for having tried to rid the world of a sneaking pitiful fellow, unfit to live.