years of courtship, the wedding day was fixed, and all things prepared for the ceremony. But the old adage, “that the course of true love never does run smooth,” was verified in their experience.

About a week before the marriage was to be solemnized, William was compelled to leave home for two days, in order to enter into some arrangements relative to the future comforts of his intended bride. While he was absent, envy and jealousy combined, dashed the cup of happiness from his lips, and caused them both much misery for many a weary year. A young man, who wished to obtain Jane Sherwell for his wife, a professed friend of William's, called upon Jane a few hours after William's departure, and informed her, (moved to it by jealousy of William, and envy of his coming happiness,) that her lover had quitted her, and that he had secretly informed him, that his motive for leaving the town was merely to break off the marriage with her.

Desperate at the thought, and suspicious at his leaving her so soon before the marriage, she too easily forgot his faithfulness for years, listened to his secret enemy, and gave credence to his falsehoods. He promised to convey a letter to William, if she wished to write to him, as he observed he knew where to address him. The letter was written and sent, accompanied by one from the traitor himself, stating that Jane had been trifling with him, and that he himself was the accepted lover. William received the letters just as he was about to return. He knew the handwriting of both, and hastily broke the seals. He read

first Jane's letter, full of bitter reproaches, undeserved scorn, and solemn asseverations that she would see him no more. He glanced over the letter of his pretended friend, for an explanation, and was convinced upon perusing it, that Jane had basely deceived him. His brain was on fire; he reeled and staggered like a drunken man; the blood rushed back impetuously to his heart, and his cheek was like the death-hue of a corpse.

A captain of a vessel

For a moment he leaned heavily upon the building for support; then recovering his strength, or inspired by the madness of despair, he rushed from the spot, and dashed himself into the sea. close by, however, sent out a boat to his assistance, and he was taken up insensible. When he recovered his animation, he thanked the captain and sailors, for their exertions in his behalf, and offered to sail with them, if they would have him as a shipmate. They gladly accepted his offer, and next day he sailed with them for India. We shall not follow him, however, through all the adventures of a seafaring life, for upwards of ten years, but shall hasten on to observe, that during his last voyage he was shipwrecked, sold as a slave, and after three years' captivity, he was released by the daughter of his owner, who was deeply in love with him, and who accompanied him to England, where they arrived after a most dangerous voyage of many months.

But, alas! for the generous girl who had left her native land for the love she bore to William, the hardships of the voyage had undermined her frail and deli

cate constitution. Nursed as she had been in the lap of luxury, with slaves at her command, to do her slightest bidding, and to screen her from the sun's warm beams, or the rude wind's breeze, she was unable to bear the hardships of a dangerous and tempestuous voyage, and the inclemencies of more northern skies. So like a beautiful and frail exotic, from a sunny land, she bent her head beneath the blast, and perished in her bloom.

Left alone in the world, with a fortune sufficient to live in respectability-received from the girl who in her dying moments generously insisted upon his keeping all her money and jewels which she brought from her native country, as he would have done had they been united—he determined once more to visit the scenes of his childhood, ere he bid farewell to England for ever.

We must now return to Jane Sherwell, who had heard of his seafaring life from a sailor he had met with in India, who came from his native place. This man had met with an accident which disabled him from serving on shipboard, and he returned to his native country, where he saw Jane Sherwell, and told her he had seen William Malcolm, in India, dressed as a sailor. This was all she had heard of him, save that he was innocent of the charge alleged against him, by his traitorous friend, who, when he found Jane would not accept him as her lover, discovered the falsehood he had told her. She still loved William, and waited in hope of his return for many a weary year. Often her hand had been solicited in marriage, but as often had

she refused. Still, down to the time of William's return was she faithful to him, and constantly hoped and prayed for his return.

Return we now to William, who, when he had fixed upon the country where he intended to pass the residue of his days, left the sea-port where he intended to embark, to view once more the scenes of childhood. He there met again with Jane Sherwell; he heard her artless and ingenuous tale; saw again the beam of affection kindle in her eye; and with raptured ecstacy clasped her to his bosom, and swore to leave her no more for ever.

They were married immediately, and have lived for years in the greatest happiness the married life is capable of, when blest with reciprocal affection, mutual forbearance, and oneness of sentiment, taste, and feeling and many a happy hour have I spent in their company, listening the history of their younger years from William's lips; and often during the relation have I seen the tears trickle down the cheek of his beloved Jane, which he fondly says a thousand times repays him for all the unhappiness he endured through his loved one's credulity.

า

No. 6.

ANNE BAKER.

"Who can all sense of others' ills escape,

Is but a brute, at best, in human shape."

TATE.

ANNE BAKER, the daughter of respectable parents, was deeply smitten by the manly and handsome figure of Henry Hume, a young man possessed of no fortune, and who had to obtain his livelihood by the sweat of his brow. They were married secretly, in consequence of the violent opposition of the lady's friends, who, after their marriage, would never be reconciled to them. They lived happily together, though poverty marked them for its victims: this they did not care for, so long as they were spared to each other. But, alas! poverty, with iron grasp, and laborious exertion, enervated his frame, and consumption speedily put an end to his hapless existence.

His wife was inconsolable for her loss, and being called upon soon after his death, to commit her infant to the silent grave, she was bereft of her reason, by these accumulating ills, and confined for years in an assylum, which she only left after that lapse of time, to find her friends still hardened against her, implacable, and unforgiving; her children dependant upon her exertions for subsistence; and herself reduced to ask for a humble pittance from those who often had fed