was, I know he ever valued you; and now that we can meet again, without the possibility of an obstacle to our one-day happiness, I feel in this, your tender memory of my father, more gratitude, more love, more unity of feeling, towards you, Charles, than years of social habitude could bring. But oh, how I have missed you in your illness! counted the long days, thought of you in my sleepless nights; and only found a consolation to my grief, when, in deep prayer, I begged from heaven the restoration of your health." So spoke, so thought, so felt, the pale yet beautiful Emmeline, as, on the evening after her father's funeral, she sat beside her lover, who had only left his chamber the previous day, to pay the last sad duty to the remains of his future wife's father.

But never did the hand of crushing, cold, destroying time write such disfigurement on the face of man, as eight short days of sickness wrought upon the soul, the features, and the manner of Charles Stanley. Haggard, pale, dejected; the wan and flitting smile that once, with dimpled cheerfulness, lighted up his happy face, gave to the features now a mournful, painful cast; his round and well-formed frame of early manhood was become gaunt, angular, and sharp; and in his voice, the mellowness of which was once like music to her ear, the anxious girl detected harsh and jarring strains. But this, but that, and all her eye, her ear, perceived, denoted, was, she fondly thought, but the result of that so strange and sudden malady, which left him now so weak and low: but he would yet revive, the harmony of voice return, the bloom of feature come again; and she would doubly love him for all his sufferings and his trials past; and with that blessed elasticity of youth, that repels from the young heart the sadder picture of life's trouble, to revel in more congenial dreams, the fond girl already witnessed in her mind the full recovery of her lover, the unalloyed and teeming happiness of both. Bright privilege of youth! Who would not sell an age of consummated bliss to feel again the fresh confiding ecstasy that gave, in former years, the paradise to life?

The conversation of the lovers was interrupted by the unannounced entrance of four gentlemen, three of whom were neighbours, and had the previous day attended the funeral; two of the party were magistrates, the fourth a stranger.

Having advanced into the room, Mr. Wakefield, a very particular friend of the late Mr. Montimar's, apologised to the lady of the house, for intruding so abruptly; but they had business of some importance to transact with Mr. Stanley, and finding him from home, had taken the liberty to wait on him here. Emmeline rose to quit the room; but Stanley, who had viewed their entrance with marked uneasiness, begged her, with a slight, but momentary earnestness of manner, to remain.

The gentlemen, having been seated, looked for a moment in cach other's faces, as if inquiring who should open the business, when Stanley observed, with studied calmness,

"I am quite at your disposal, though I have not the pleasure of this gentleman's acquaintance."

The stranger alluded to replied, "My name, Sir, is Whitby ; will you permit me to inquire when you last heard from your uncle, Mr. Brownlow ?"

"Not since not since he left me to return to town, a week and more ago. Why do you——Why sir?" inquired Charles, with considerable embarrassment?

"He has not been heard of from that time till to-day and this gentleman, his legal adviser," added Mr. Wakefield, "has been applied to by his servants, and came down here to investigate the cause of his absence; he has not been seen from the time he left the inn, eight days ago, till this morning his body was discovered." Charles Stanley's face had assumed, during Mr. Wakefield's account, a livid hue, and his hands involuntarily clutched the cushion of the sofa on which he sat, as if for support, as he answered, "His body found?-Is my uncle dead?"

"He is," resumed the lawyer; "and what is more dreadful to recount, he has been murdered." And Mr. Whitby placed a peculiar emphasis on his words, while he directed the full expression of his eye on Charles's countenance.

"Murdered!" shricked Emmeline, clasping her hands; "murdered! oh God!" At the same moment Stanley started to his feet, and bent a look of pale, but haughty, defiance at the man of law. After an instant's pause, he articulated hoarsely, "Murdered, Sir! by-by whom?"

"An Irish beggar and his wife were yesterday arrested, and committed by me upon this charge," replied Mr. Wakefield.

"What motive could they have in perpetrating such a crime?" asked Emmeline, as her lover resumed his seat by her side. "Your uncle was latterly accustomed to carry a large sum of money on his person," the lawyer added, addressing Stanley. "Then robbery," stammered out Charles, "robbery was the motive."

"Of course," Mr. Wakefield continued; "and yet it could be no ordinary robber, for, on the body being searched, a watch and many valuable jewels were found untouched.”

"Thank Heaven!" cried Emmeline, "you have secured the wretches; oh, the poor-poor old man!" and the tender-hearted girl burst into tears, partly from real sorrow at his untimely fate, and from the sympathy of heart, that felt as keen her lover's grief, as if it was her own unshared calamity.

"I am sorry to say No, Madam. We thought so at first; but, on investigating the case more closely, we were deceived; the

foot-marks around the spot corresponded with the shoes worn by the beggar, and on his person was found a coin, an old Spanish doubloon, which I myself gave to your uncle not a month ago; I had marked it, and I have since identified it," replied the lawyer.

During this short speech the fingers of Charles Stanley had gradually sought his waistcoat pockets. It was a trivial incident, but not unobserved; and as he withdrew his hand he leant his body back on the sofa, while a livid shade passed over his features, and large drops of perspiration stood on his face and forehead. At length, with some difficulty he said, "This was strong evidence."

"At first," observed Mr. Wakefield, " presumptively, it was; but he has since accounted for the possession of both the boots and the coin. Pray, Madam," he said, addressing Emmeline, "do you not own this miniature?" at the same time holding up to view a very small ivory portrait of herself, which was suspended by a delicate gold chain, a few of whose links were elongated and broken.

"It is mine!" exclaimed Charles, rising up, and seizing the miniature from the magistrate's hand; "how came it therehere, I mean? I have sought for it everywhere."

"Indeed, Sir! Had not the lady better retire?" inquired the lawyer. "No! no! let me stay; I will remain," she cried; then turning to Stanley, who stood pale and haggard by her side: "You are ill, Charles; dear Charles, you are very ill." "Sick, love, only; sick-very sick," he faintly answered. Emmeline instantly filled a glass with water and presented it to him. His hand shook as he took it; but quickly recovering his composure, he drank it off, and again resumed his seat.

"Pardon me, Mr. Stanley; but, in my young days, we considered it ungallant to receive anything from a lady with the worst hand, I mean the left," Mr. Wakefield remarked, with a peculiarly meaning and unpleasant smile.

66

"It is a habit, Sir," Charles somewhat sternly replied; I have been left-handed all my life."

"Indeed! that is very remarkable," exclaimed two or three at

once.

"Remarkable, Sirs !" cried Charles, now angry. "Perhaps, gentlemen, you will explain what is remarkable.'

"I will, Sir; but Miss Montimar had better retire," Mr. Wakefield continued.

"I shall remain, Sir!" Emmeline instantly added; indignant that her lover's peculiarity should be thus rudely commented upon. "As you will, Madam!" said the justice, and then proceeded. "Two professional gentlemen of eminence have examined the body of your murdered uncle, and from the nature and position

of the wound on the head, and the deeper indentation of one of the thumb-marks on the throat, give it as their opinion, that none but a left-handed man could have done the revolting deed; and, to be brief, Sir, £10,000, the sum known to be on your uncle's person, in notes, and agreeing with the numbers by him drawn from the bank, have been found in your house, which, coupled with the piece of money you were seen to give the beggar yesterday, and that chain and miniature found entangled in the dead man's fingers, can no longer render it doubtful, that you, and you only, have been guilty of this unnatural murder, on which charge I here arrest you."

One faint, half-choked scream was all that escaped from the tortured bosom of the miserable Emmeline, as she dropped lifeless over her lover's feet. The two gentlemen who had hitherto taken no part in the conversation now rushed forward to raise the unconscious girl from the ground. Stanley, mistaking their motive, leapt over the sofa, and stood with his back to one of the lofty windows that looked down upon the carriage drive; his eyes dilated to their utmost verge, and directed to the opposite wall; his mouth open, and every hair upon his head erect ; while both his arms were stretched out, his hands upwards, and his fingers widely parted; his whole aspect denoting horror and madness.

"Stand back! Come not near me! Merciful God! let him not touch me!" he almost shrieked in a cracked and broken voice. "Awful shadow! what is your will? Stand back! back! back!" and, as he spoke, he retreated round with his arms still extended, as if avoiding some hideous phantom, till, having made a half-circle, preserving the same attitude, he stood with his back pressing against the sofa, while his gaze was directed with ghastly intensity upon the window. "What should I care ?" he again cried shrilly. "Am I not mad? mad? but I will go! By heaven, I will pass you! though your bloody corpse should blast my eyes, as it has maddened my brain! Why do you point your bony finger up to God? Ay! now I know; I see! The grave, the grave! Coming, coming! Ha! retributionretribution is here!" and throwing his arms wildly over his head, sprang forward to the window, dashed up the lofty casement, and, in a moment, hurled himself headlong down.

The last action was so quick that, even had they been prepared for such a catastrophe, human aid would have been too slow to intercept his tragical descent. Hastily summoning her female attendants to the still insensible Emmeline, the gentlemen hurried below, where, on the hard gravel, lay the mangled body of Charles Stanley. He had fallen on his head, which the constable was supporting on his knee, while, with his handkerchief, he endeavoured to cleanse the mouth of the blood that poured from

it. A few faint scratches with the fingers along the gravel, two or three spasmodic tremors of the legs, one jerk of the spine forward, and the body rolled off the officer's knee, as insensible and carthy as the hard ground on which the dead man now lay.

In a small carpeted room, not quite ten feet square, destitute of all furniture except a small, strong mahogany table and a stuffed arm-chair, both nailed and riveted to the floor, with a window crossed and barred with iron rods, sat a pale but very beautiful woman, attired in an elegant velvet dress of the deepest mourning; her dark hair braided and carried behind her ears, and secured, as well as her back hair, with silken strings, gave a classical character to her fine features; while her white neck and well-developed bust seemed more snowy pure, from contrast with her sombre dress. Her left fore-finger and thumb were compressed, as if holding some delicate work, while gracefully, with parted fingers, she elevated and depressed her right arm, as if drawing the fine thread through some rich embroidery.

Sometimes she paused, and then, by action most true to nature, unwound the reel, threaded her imaginative needle, or put the knot upon the attenuated line, and then, again, resumed the constant work.

More rarely still she lifted up her eyes; but when you saw those once so soft and melting orbs, the beauty of the face was gone, for they were fierce, quick, and flashing; the mild repose that gave such delicacy to the regular and well-formed features of her face, became, when lighted by her scorching eye, square and imperious.

She never spoke. Sometimes, indeed, in a low voice like a dying harp-string's note, she would sing a plaintive air, beating the time with her small foot, till suddenly the clanking chain that, double-riveted and strong, secured her tiny ancle to the staple in the floor, roused her to other thoughts; and then a deep and wrinkled frown ploughed up her fair, broad forehead, giving her whole contour a Pythian sternness.

And thus, for fifteen years, in solitude, with few sounds but idiot laughter, or the hoarse maniac's shriek, to greet her car, lived, wasted, died, the beautiful, the rich, the loving Emmeline.

THE SONGS OF ZION.

BY MRS. CHARLES TINSLEY.

OH, Zion, thou mayst ne'er forget
The sadness of the day,

When, by the streams of Babylon,
Thy harps in silence lay.