command extended so far as to prevent any open manifestation of emotion, however much her feelings were excited.

"I took sides with the women because I am a woman myself," she answered, speaking at length with decision, as if determined to bring matters to a head at once. "It is natural for us all to take sides with our kind."

"You a woman, Jack?-that is very remarkable. Since when have you hailed for a woman? You have shipped with me twice, and each time as a man, though I never thought you able to do seaman's duty."

"Nevertheless, I am what you see--a woman born and edicated; one that never had on man's dress till I knew you. You supposed me to be

a man when I came off to you in the skiff to the eastward of Riker's Island; but I was then what you now see."

"I begin to understand matters," rejoined the invalid, musingly. Ay, ay, it opens upon me; and I now see how it was you made such fair weather with Madam Budd and pretty, pretty Rose. Rose is pretty, Jack; you must admit that, though you be a woman."

"Rose is pretty, I do admit it; and what is better, she is good." It required a heavy draft on Jack's justice and magnanimity, however, to make this concession."

"And you told Rose and Madam Budd about your sex, and that was the reason they took to you so on the v'y'ge?"

"I told them who I was, and why I went abroad as a man. They know my whole story."

"Did Rose approve of your sailing under false colours, Jack?" "You must ask that of Rose herself. My story made her my friend; but she never said anything for or against my disguise."

"It was no great disguise, a'ter all, Jack. Now you 're fitted out in your own clothes, you 've a sort of half rigged look. One would be as likely to set you down as a man under jury-canvass as for a woman.”

Jack made no answer to this, but she sighed very heavily. As for Spike himself, he was silent for some little time, not only from exhaustion, but because he suffered pain from his wound. The needle was diligently but awkwardly plied in this pause.

Spike's ideas were still a little confused, but a silence and rest of a quarter of an hour cleared them materially. At the end of that time he again asked for water. When he had drunk, and Jack was once more seated with his side-face towards him, at work with the needle, the Captain gazed long and intently at this strange woman. It happened that the profile of Jack preserved more of the resemblance to her former self than the full face, and it was this resemblance that now attracted Spike's attention, though not the smallest suspicion of the truth yet gleamed upon him. He saw something that was familiar, though he could not even tell what that something was, much less to what or whom it bore any resemblance. At length he spoke.

"I was told that Jack Tier was dead," he said; "that he took the fever and was in his grave within eight and forty hours after we sailed. That was what they told me of him."

"And what did they tell you of your own wife, Stephen Spike; she you left ashore at the time Jack was left ?"

that

They said she did not die for three years later. I heard of her death at New Orleens three years later."

"And how could you leave her ashore-she, your true and lawful wife?"

"It was a bad thing," answered Spike, who, like all other mortals, regarded his own past career, now that he stood on the edge of the grave, very differently from what he had regarded it in the hour of his health and strength; " yes, it was a very bad thing; and I wish it was undone. But, it is too late now; she died of the fever, too; that is some comfort; had she died of a broken heart, I could never have forgiven myself. Molly was not without her faults; great faults I considered them; but, on the whole, Molly was a good creatur' !" "You liked her, then, Stephen Spike?"

"I can truly say that when I married Molly, and old Captain Swash put his daughter's hand into mine, that the woman was not living who was better in my judgment, or handsomer in my eyes."

"Ay, ay,-when you married her; but how was it a'terwards, when you was tired of her, and saw another that was fairer in your eyes?" "I desarted her, and God has punished me for the sin. Do you know, Jack, that luck has never been with me since that day. Often, and often, have I bethought me of it, and sartain as you sit there, no great luck has ever been with me, or my craft, since I went off leaving my wife ashore. What was made in one v'y'ge, was lost in the next. Up and down, up and down, the whole time, for so many, many long years, that gray hairs set in, and old age was beginning to get close aboard, and I as poor as ever. It has been rub and go with me ever since; and I've had as much as I could do to keep the brig in motion, the only means that was left to make the two ends meet."

"And did not all this make you think of your poor wife, she whom you had so wronged?"

"I thought of little else, until I heard of her death at New Orleens, and then I gave it up as useless. Could I have fallen in with Molly at any time a'ter the first six months of my desartion, she and I would have come together again, and everything would have been forgotten. I know'd her very natur', which was all forgiveness to me at the bottom, though seemingly so spiteful and hard."

"Yet you wanted to have this Rose Budd, who is only too young and handsome, and good, for you."

"I was tired of being a widower, Jack, and Rose is wonderful pretty! She has money, too, and might make the evening of my days comfortable. The brig was old, as you must know, and has long been off of all the insurance offices' books, and she couldn't hold together much longer. But for this sloop-of-war I should have put her off on the Mexicans, and they would have lost her to our people in a month."

"And was it an honest thing to sell an old and worn out craft to any one, Stephen Spike ?"

Spike had a conscience that had become hard as iron by means of trade. He who traffics much, most especially if his dealings be on so small a scale as to render constant investigations of the minor qualities of things necessary, must be a very fortunate man if he preserve his conscience in any better condition. When Jack made this allusion, therefore, the dying man—for death was much nearer to Spike than even he supposed, though he no longer hoped for his own recovery,when Jack made this allusion, then, the dying man was a good deal at a loss to comprehend it. He saw no particular harm in making the

best bargain he could, nor was it easy for him to understand why he might not dispose of any thing he possessed for the highest price that was to be had. Still he answered in an apologetic sort of way.

"The brig was old, I acknowledge," he said, "but she was strong and might have run a long time. I only spoke of her capture as a thing likely to take place soon, if the Mexicans got her, so that her qualities were of no great account, unless it might be her speed, and that you know was excellent, Jack."

"And you regret that brig, Stephen Spike, lying as you do there on your death-bed, more than any thing else?"

"Not as much as I do pretty Rose Budd, Jack: Rosy is so delightful to look at !"

The muscles of Jack's face twitched a little, and she looked deeply mortified, for, to own the truth, she hoped that the conversation so far had so turned her delinquent husband's thoughts to the past, as to have revived in him some of his former interest in herself. It is true, he still believed her dead; but this was a circumstance Jack overlooked, so hard is it to hear the praises of a rival and be just. She felt the necessity of being more explicit, and determined at once to come to the point.

"Stephen Spike," she said, steadily drawing near to the bed-side, "you should be told the truth, when you are heard thus extolling the good looks of Rose Budd, with less than eight and forty hours of life remaining. Mary Swash did not die, as you have supposed, three years a'ter you desarted her, but is living at this moment. Had you read the letter I gave you in the boat, just before you made me jump into the sea, that would have told you where she is to be found."

Spike stared at the speaker intently, and when her cracked voice ceased, his look was that of a man who was terrified, as well as bewildered. This did not arise still from any gleamings of the real state of the case, but from the soreness with which his conscience pricked him, when he heard that his much wronged wife was alive. He fancied with a vivid and rapid glance at the probabilities, all that a woman abandoned would be likely to endure in the course of so many long and suffering years. "Are you sure of what you say, Jack? you wouldn't take advantage of my situation, to tell me an untruth ?"

"As certain of it as of my own existence. I have seen her quite lately-talked with her of you-in short, she is now at Key West, knows your state, and has a wife's feelin's to come to your bedside."

Notwithstanding all this, and the many gleamings he had had of the facts during their late intercourse on board the brig, Spike did not guess at the truth. He appeared astounded, and his terror seemed to in

crease.

"I have another thing to tell you," continued Jack, pausing but a moment to collect her own thoughts, "Jack Tier, the real Jack Tier, he who sailed with you of old, and whom you left ashore at the same time you desarted your wife, did die of the fever, as you was told, in eight and forty hours a'ter the brig went to sea." "Then who, in the name of Heaven, are you? hail by another's name, as well as by another sex ?" "What could a woman do, whose husband had strange land?"

"That is remarkable!

How came you to

desarted her in a

So you've been married? I should not have

thought that possible. And your husband desarted you, too,-well, such things do happen."

Jack now felt a severe pang. She could not but see that her ungainly we had almost said her unearthly appearance, prevented the captain from even yet suspecting the truth, and the meaning of his language was not easily to be mistaken. That any one should have married her, seemed to her husband as improbable, as it was probable he would run away from her, as soon as it was in his power after the ceremony.

"Stephen Spike," resumed Jack, solemnly, "I am Mary Swash!— I am your wife !"

Spike started in his bed; then he buried his face in the coverlet, and he actually groaned. In bitterness of spirit the woman turned away and wept. Her feelings had been blunted by misfortunes, and the collisions of a selfish world, but enough of former self remained to make this the hardest of all the blows she had ever received. Her husband, dying as he was, as he must and did know himself to be, shrank from one of her appearance, unsexed as she had become by habits, and changed by years and suffering.

THE POSTMAN.

BY H. R. ADDISON.

OH! speed thee on, oh! postman, speed,
Pause not to draw a breath;
On passing sighs bestow no heed,
Thou bearest life or death.
Each step conveys a nearer knell
Of joy to many a heart;
While many a line shall sorrow tell
And bid e'en hope depart.

Then speed thee on, oh! postman, speed,
Pause not to draw a breath;
On passing crowds bestow no heed,
Thou bearest life or death.

Yon little note with mourning seal
A tale of joys shall bear,
The uncle's death, its lines reveal
To his imprison'd heir;

The miser 's gone, the spendthrift now
Shall soon destroy his health;
His task, his only ardent vow,
To waste thy hoarded wealth.
Then speed, &c.

Those ill-directed lines shall bear
To yonder widow's heart
A tale of grief and deep despair
Beyond the healing art.
Her only son, a soldier brave,

His mother's prop and pride,
On foreign shores has found a grave,
In Victory's lap he died.
Then speed, &c.

Yon sweetly-scented little note
Which wafts a lover's sighs,
A ruined rake in anger wrote
Beneath a rival's eyes-

The rich man's prayer for bartered
health,

The broker's deep laid scheme,
The poor man's cry for misplaced wealth,
The school-girl's early dream,
The base seducer's luring tale,

The falsehood of a wife,
Dishonest dealers going to fail,
And sharper's gambling life.
Then speed, &c.

Thy little burden bears more woe,
More joy, more hopes, more fears,
Than any living mind can know
Or learn in fifty years;
For thoughts unbreathed are wafted
there,

And minds, though far apart,
Shall tell far more than language dare,
Or utterance can impart.

Then speed, &c.

THE OLD MAN AND HIS GUESTS.

BY H. J. WHITLING.

"While I touch the string,

Wreathe my brows with laurel,

For the tale I bring

Has, at least, a moral."

THE following story is gathered from a gossiping tradition which, although probably hitherto unknown to the reader, is common enough in the locality named. Its leading incidents are, with some slight occasional variation, in the mouth of every peasant in the country round, where they are cherished and regarded with a very suspicious kind of veneration.

IDLESSE; OR, THE NOON-DAY HALT.

TOWARDS the close of the summer of 1606 a party of disbanded spearmen had just returned from assisting one of the pugnacious bishops of Cologne in an attack, common enough in those days, upon the territories of some of his neighbours. Contrary, however, to the custom of such men at such times, they were wandering along silently and discouraged, for they had gained but little wherewith to line their pockets by the unlucky war which had been waged against the Bavarian princes. That portion of the church-militant under whose banner they enlisted themselves, seems to have had the worst of it, and now, they knew not to-day, how they should supply the wants of the morrow.

The times must, indeed, have appeared to them to be particularly hard, since the emperor had enjoined universal peace among the rulers throughout the holy Roman empire, in order the better to assist the necessary combination against the danger which still threatened its frontier on the side of Turkey. All hope, therefore, of occupation at home was for the present at an end; and, to fight against turban'd infidels, carrying horse-tails and crooked sabres, was the last thing likely to enter the heads of these worthies, not because they dreaded hard knocks, but because they cared not to war in an already devastated border, where, when the fight was done, there was but little to expect by way of comfort for dry throats and hungry stomachs.

They were, indeed, a motley and ill-assorted group, numbering amongst them men of all heights and ages, ready to do battle and to sell their blood in the cause of any master, however desperate or lawless his object might be. Their halberds and steel caps were all rusting through the neglect consequent upon recent disuse; their swords no longer glistened with their wonted brightness; their buff coats shewed occasional spots of mouldy hue; their wide trunkhose had long ago lost their original colour; their shoes stained by the soil and service of many countries, promised soon to part company with the feet they so inadequately protected; and, altogether, they presented as interesting a specimen of reckless and marauding vagabondism as ever graced the times we speak of.