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not much farther be deferred. He watched-he prayed by her bedside-he strove even yet to smile and to speak of hope, but his lips trembled as he spake; and neither he nor his wife were deceived, for their thoughts were the same, and years of love had taught them too well all the secrets of each other's looks as well as hearts.

'Nobody witnessed their last parting; the room was darkened, and no one was within it but themselves and their child, who sat by the bed-side, weeping in silence she knew not wherefore-for of death she knew little, except the terrible name; and her father had as yet been, if not brave enough to shed no tears, at least strong enough to conceal them.-Silently and gently was the pure spirit released from its clay; but manly groans were, for the first time, heard above the sobs and wailings of the infant; and the listening household shrunk back from the door, for they knew that the blow had been stricken; and the voice of humble sympathy feared to make itself be heard in the sanctuary of such affliction. The village doctor arrived just at that moment; he listened for a few seconds, and being satisfied that all was over, he also turned away. His horse had been fastened to the hook by the Manse door; he drew out the bridle, and led the animal softly over the turf, but did not mount again until he had far passed the outskirts of the green.

Perhaps an hour might have passed before Mr Blair opened the window of the room in which his wife had died. His footstep had been heard for some time hurriedly traversing and re-traversing the floor; but at last he stopped where the nearly fastened shutters of the window admitted but one broken line of light into the chamber, He threw every thing open with a bold hand, and the uplifting of the window produced a degree of noise, to the like of which the house had for some time been unaccustomed: he looked out, and saw the external world bright before him, with all the rich colourings of a September evening.-The hum of the village sent an occasional echo through the intervening hedge-rows; all was quiet and beautiful above and below; the earth seemed to be clothed all over with sights and sounds of serenity; and the sky, deepening into darker and darker blue overhead, showed the earliest of its stars intensely twinkling, as if ready to harbinger or welcome the coming

moon.

The widowed man gazed for some minutes in silence upon the glorious calm of nature, and then turned with a sudden start to the side of the room where the wife of his bosom had so lately breathed; he saw the pale dead face; the black ringlets parted on the brow; the marble hand extended upon the sheet; the unclosed glassy eyes; and the little girl leaning towards her mother in a gaze of half-horrified bewilderment; he closed the stiffening eyelids over the soft but ghastly orbs; kissed the brow, the cheek, the lips, the bosom, and then rushed down the stairs, and away out, bare-headed, into the fields, before any one could stop him, or ask whither he was going.

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There is an old thick grove of pines almost immediately behind the house; and after staring about him for a moment on the green, he leapt hastily over the little brook that skirts it, and plunged within the shade of the trees. The breeze was rustling the black boughs high over his head, and whistling along the bare ground beneath him. He rushed he knew not whither, on and on, between those naked brown trunks, till he was in the heart of the wood; and there, at last, he tossed himself down on his back among the withered fern leaves and mouldering fir-cones. All the past things of life floated before him, distinct in their lineaments, yet twined together, the darkest and the gayest, into a sort of union, that made them all appear alike dark. The mother, that had nursed his years of infancy-the father, whose hairs he had long before laid in the grave-sisters, brothers, friends, all dead and buried-the angel forms of his own early-ravished offspring-all crowded round and round him, and then rushing away, seemed to bear from him, as a prize and a trophy, the pale image of his expiring wife. Again SHE returned, and she alone was present with him-not the pale expiring wife, but the young radiant woman-blushing, trembling, smiling, panting on his bosom, whispering to him all her hopes, and fears, and pride, and love, and tenderness, and meekness, like a bride; and then again all would be black as night. He would start up and gaze around, and see nothing but the sepulchral gloom of the wood, and hear nothing but the cold blasts among the leaves. He lay insensible alike to all things, stretched out at all his length, with his eyes fixed in a stupid stedfastness upon one great massy branch that hung over him-his bloodless lips fastened together, as if they had been glued-his limbs like things entirely destitute of life and motion-every thing about him cold, stiff, and senseless. Minute after minute passed heavily away as in a dreamhour after hour rolled unheeded into the abyss-the stars twinkled through the pine-tops, and disappeared-the moon arose in her glory, rode through the clear autumn heaven, and vanished-and all alike unnoted by the prostrate widower.

Adam Blair came forth from among the fir-trees in the grey light of the morning, walked leisurely and calmly several times round the garden-green, which lay immediately in front of his house, then lifted the latch for himself, and glided with light and hasty footsteps up stairs to the room, where, for some weeks past, he had been accustomed to occupy a solitary bed. The wakeful servants heard him shut his door behind him; one of them having gone out anxiously, had traced him to his privacy, but none of them had ventured to think of disturbing it. Until he had come back, not one of them thought of going to bed. Now, however, they did so, and the house of sorrow was all over silent.' Adam Blair, pp. 4-12.

There is great merit too, though of a different kind, in the scenes with Strahan and Campbell, and those with the ministers

and elders. But the story is clumsily put together, and the diction, though strong and copious, is frequently turgid and in

correct.

The Trials of Margaret Lindsay,' by the author of Lights and Shadows, is the last of these publications of which we shall now say any thing; and it is too pathetic and full of sorrow for us to say much of it. It is very beautiful and tender; but something cloying, perhaps, in the uniformity of its beauty, and exceedingly oppressive in the unremitting weight of the pity with which it presses on our souls. Nothing was ever imagined more lovely than the beauty, the innocence, and the sweetness of Margaret Lindsay, in the earlier part of her trials; and nothing, we believe, is more true, than the comfortable lesson which her tale is meant to inculcate,-that a gentle and affectionate nature is never inconsolable nor permanently unhappy, but easily proceeds from submission to new enjoyment. But the tale of her trials, the accumulation of suffering on the heads of the humblest and most innocent of God's creatures, is too painful to be voluntarily recalled; and we cannot now undertake to give our readers any account of her father's desertion of his helpless family-of their dismal banishment from the sweet retreat, in which they had been nurtured-their painful struggle with poverty and discomfort, in the darksome lanes of the city -the successive deaths of all this affectionate and harmless household, and her own ill-starred marriage to the husband of another wife. Yet we must enable them to form some notion of a work, which has drawn more tears from us than any we have had to peruse since the commencement of our career. This is the account of the migration of the ruined and resigned family from the scene of their early enjoyments.

The twenty-fourth day of November came at last—a dim, dull, dreary, and obscure day, fit for parting everlastingly from a place or person tenderly beloved. There was no sun-no wind-no sound in the misty and unechoing air. A deadness lay over the wet earth, and there was no visible Heaven. Their goods and chattels were few; but many little delays occurred, some accidental, and more in the unwillingness of their hearts to take a final farewell. A neighbour had lent his cart for the flitting, and it was now standing loaded at the door, ready to move away. The fire, which had been kindled in the morning with a few borrowed peats, was now outthe shutters closed-the door was locked-and the key put into the hand of the person sent to receive it. And now there was nothing more to be said or done, and the impatient horse started briskly away from Braehead. The blind girl, and poor Marion, were sitting in the cart-Margaret and her mother were on foot. Esther had two or three small flower-pots in her lap, for in her blindness she

loved the sweet fragrance, and the felt forms and imagined beauty of flowers; and the innocent carried away her tame pigeon in her bosom. Just as Margaret lingered on the threshold, the Robin redbreast, that had been their boarder for several winters, hopped upon the stone-seat at the side of the door, and turned up its merry eyes to her face. "There," said she," is your last crumb from us, sweet Roby, but there is a God who takes care o' us a'." The widow had by this time shut down the lid of her memory, and left all the hoard of her thoughts and feelings, joyful or despairing, buried in darkness. The assembled group of neighbours, mostly mothers with their children in their arms, had given the "God bless you, Alice, God bless you, Margaret, and the lave," and began to disperse; each turning to her own cares and anxieties, in which, before night, the Lyndsays would either be forgotten, or thought on with that unpainful sympathy which is all the poor can afford or expect, but which, as in this case, often yields the fairest fruits of charity and love.

A cold sleety rain accompanied the cart and the foot travellers all the way to the city, Short as the distance was, they met with several other flittings, some seemingly cheerful, and from good to better, others with woe-begone faces, going like themselves down the path of poverty, on a journey from which they were to rest at night in a bare and hungry house. And now they drove through the suburbs, and into the city, passing unheeded among crowds of people, all on their own business of pleasure or profit, laughing, jibing, shouting, cursing,-the stir, and tumult, and torrent of congregated life. Margaret could hardly help feeling elated with the glitter of all the shining windows, and the hurry of the streets. Marion sat silent with her pigeon warm in her breast below her brown cloak, unknowing she of change of time or of place, and reconciled to sit patiently there, with the soft plumage touching her heart, if the cart had gone on, through the cold and sleet, to midnight.

The cart stopt at the foot of a lane too narrow to admit the wheels, and also too steep for a laden horse. Two or three of their new neighbours,-persons in the very humblest condition, coarsely and negligently dressed, but seemingly kind and decent people, came out from their houses at the stopping of the cart-wheels. The cart was soon unladen, and the furniture put into the empty room. A cheerful fire was blazing, and the animated and interested faces of the honest folks who crowded into it, on a slight acquaintance, unceremoniously and curiously, but without rudeness, gave a cheerful welcome to the new dwelling. In a quarter of an hour the beds were laid down, the room decently arranged,-one and all of the neighbours said " Gude night, "-and the door was closed upon the Lyndsays in their new dwelling.

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They blessed and eat their bread in peace. The Bible was then opened, and Margaret read a chapter. There was frequent and loud noise in the lane, of passing merriment or anger,-but this little con

gregation worshipped God in a hymn, Esther's sweet voice leading the sacred melody, and they knelt together in prayer.'-Trials of Margaret Lyndsay, 66-70.

Her brother goes to sea, and returns, affectionate and happy, with a young companion, whom the opening beauty of Margaret Lindsay charms into his first dream of love, and whose gallant bearing and open heart, cast the first, and almost the last gleam of joy and enchantment over the gentle and chastened heart of the maiden. But this, like all her other dawnings of joy, led only to more bitter affliction. She had engaged to go with him and her brother to church, one fine summer Sunday, and—the author shall tell the rest of the story himself.

'Her heart was indeed glad within her, when she saw the young sailor at the spot. His brown sun-burnt face was all one smile of exulting joy and his bold clear eyes burned through the black hair that clustered over his forehead. There was not a handsomer, finerlooking boy in the British navy. Although serving before the mast, as many a noble lad has done, he was the son of a poor gentleman; and as he came up to Margaret Lyndsay, in his smartest suit, with his white straw-hat, his clean shirt-neck tied with a black ribband, and a small yellow cane in his hand, a brighter boy and a fairer girl never met in affection in the calm sunshine of a Scottish Sabbathday.

Why have not you brought Laurence with you?" Harry made her put her arm within his, and then told her that it was not her brother's day on shore. Now all the calm air was filled with the sound of bells, and Leith Walk covered with well-dressed families. The nursery-gardens on each side were almost in their greatest beauty-so soft and delicate the verdure of the young imbedded trees, and so bright the glow of intermingled early flowers. "Let us go to Leith by a way I have discovered,' said the joyful sailor-and he drew Margaret gently away from the public walk, into a retired path winding with many little white gates through these luxurianty cultivated enclosures. The insects were dancing in the air-birds singing all about them-the sky was without a cloud-and a bright dazzling line of light was all that was now seen for the sea. The youthful pair loitered in their happiness-they never marked that the bells had ceased ringing; and when at last they hurried to reach the chapel, the door was closed, and they heard the service chant. ing. Margaret durst not knock at the door, or go in so long after worship was begun; and she secretly upbraided herself for her forgetfulness of a well-known and holy hour. She felt unlike herself walking on the street during the time of church, and beseeched Harry to go with her out of the sight of the windows, that all seemed watching her in her neglect of Divine worship. So they bent their steps towards the shore,

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