THE LAST VOYAGE.

A TRUE STORY.

BY MRS. OPIE.

We cannot fail to observe, as we advance in life, how vividly our earliest recollections recur to us; and this consciousness is accompanied by a melancholy pleasure, when we are deprived of those who are most tenderly associated with such remembrances; because they bring the beloved dead "before our mind's eye," and beguile the loneliness of the present hour by visions of the past. In such visions I now often love to indulge; and in one of them, a journey to Y—was recently brought before me, in which my ever-indulgent father permitted me to accompany him, when I was yet but a child.

As we drove through C―r, a village within three miles of Y

he directed my attention to a remarkable rising, or conical mound of earth, on the top of the tower of C―r church. He then kindly explained the cause of this singular and distinguishing appearance, and told me the traditionary anecdote connected with it; which now, in my own words, I am going to communicate to my readers.

It is generally supposed that great grief makes the heart so selfishly absorbed in its own sufferings as to render it regardless of the sufferings of others; but the conduct of her who is the heroine of the following tale will prove an honorable exception to this general rule.

I know nothing of her birth and parentage, nor am I acquainted even with her name; but I shall call her Birtha. The story goes, that she lived at Cr, three miles from Y—————, in N—————, and Y