breezy freshness played among her ringlets, and wafted them from the transparent marble of her brow. She clasped her hands, she raised her eyes to Heaven. I heard her voice. Guido! she softly murmured, Mine own Guido! and then, as if overcome by the fulness of her own heart, she sank on her knees-her praised eyes-her negligent but graceful attitude, the beaming thankfulness that lighted up her face -oh, these are tame words! Heart of mine, thou imagest ever, though thou canst not pourtray, the celestial beauty of that child of light and love.

I heard a step-a quick firm step along the shady avenue. Soon I saw a cavalier, richly dressed, young and, methought, graceful to look on, advance.-I hid myself yet closer.-The youth approached; he paused beneath the window. She arose, and again looking out she saw him, and said-I cannot, no, at this distant time I cannot record her terms of soft silver tenderness; to me they were spoken, but they were replied to by him.

"I will not go,” he cried: "here where you have been, where your memory glides like some Heaven-visiting ghost, I will pass the long hours till we meet, never, my Juliet, again, day or night, to part. But do thou, my love, retire; the cold morn and fitful breeze will make thy cheek pale, and fill with languor thy love-lighted eyes. Ah, sweetest! could I press one kiss upon them, I could, methinks, repose."

And then he approached still nearer, and methought he was about to clamber into her chamber. I had hesitated, not to terrify her; now I was no longer master of myself. I rushed forward-I threw myself on him-I tore him away -I cried, "O loathsome and foul-shaped wretch!"

I need not repeat epithets, all tending, as it appeared, to rail at a person I at present feel some partiality for. A shriek rose from Juliet's lips. I neither heard nor saw-I felt only mine enemy, whose throat I grasped, and my

dagger's hilt; he struggled, but could not escape: at length hoarsely he breathed these words: "Do!-strike home! destroy this body-you will still live: may your life be long and merry!"

The descending dagger was arrested at the word, and he, feeling my hold relax, extricated himself and drew his sword, while the uproar in the house, and flying of torches from one room to the other, showed that soon we should be separated-and I-oh! far better die: so that he did not survive, I cared not. In the midst of my frenzy there was much calculation :-fall I might, and so that he did not survive, I cared not for the death-blow I might deal against myself. While still, therefore, he thought I paused, and while I saw the villainous resolve to take advantage of my hesitation, in the sudden thrust he made at me, I threw myself on his sword, and at the same moment plunged my dagger, with a true desperate aim, in his side. We fell together, rolling over each other, and the tide of blood that flowed from the gaping wound of each mingled on the grass. More I know not-I fainted.

Again I returned to life: weak almost to death, I found myself stretched upon a bed-Juliet was kneeling beside it. Strange! my first broken request was for a mirror. I was so wan and ghastly, that my poor girl hesitated, as she told me afterwards; but, by the mass! I thought myself a right proper youth when I saw the dear reflection of my own well-known features. I confess it is a weakness, but I avow it, I do entertain a considerable affection for the countenance and limbs I behold, whenever I look at a glass; and have more mirrors in my house, and consult them oftener than any beauty in Venice. Before you too much condemn me, permit me to say that no one better knows than I the value of his own body; no one, probably, except myself, ever having had it stolen from him.

Incoherently I at first talked of the dwarf and his crimes, and reproached Juliet for her too easy admission of his love. She thought me raving, as well she might, and yet it was some time before I could prevail on myself to admit that the Guido whose penitence had won her back for me was myself; and while I cursed bitterly the monstrous dwarf, and blest the well-directed blow that had deprived him of life, I suddenly checked myself when I heard her say— Amen! knowing that him whom she reviled was my very self. A little reflection taught me silence—a little practice enabled me to speak of that frightful night without any very excessive blunder. The wound I had given myself was no mockery of one-it was long before I recovered-and as the benevolent and generous Torella sat beside me, talking such wisdom as might win friends to repentance, and mine own dear Juliet hovered near me, administering to my wants, and cheering me by her smiles, the work of my bodily cure and mental reform went on together. I have never, indeed, wholly recovered my strength-my cheek is paler since-my person a little bent. Juliet sometimes ventures to allude bitterly to the malice that caused this change, but I kiss her on the moment, and tell her all is for the best. I am a fonder and more faithful husband-and true is this-but for that wound, never had I called her mine.

I did not revisit the sea-shore, nor seek for the fiend's treasure; yet, while I ponder on the past, I often think, and my confessor was not backward in favouring the idea, that it might be a good rather than an evil spirit, sent by my guardian angel, to show me the folly and misery of pride. So well at least did I learn this lesson, roughly taught as I was, that I am known now by all my friends and fellowcitizens by the name of Guido il Cortese.

THE TRIAL.

Founded on Fact.

THE trial of James Frankland was not yet over. His mother, his sister, and younger brother bent their knees in prayer for his deliverance, with an agony which momentarily increased. Every fresh arrival of some kind neighbour, with later news from the Court House, made them more and more afraid that even innocence, manifest as his appeared to their eyes, might be finally overborne by a weight of circumstantial proof, artfully and fiaudulently piled together. By degrees these messengers of kindness came less frequently; and their words were less encouraging. For evidence of forgery, strong as presumptive evidence well could be, was rapidly accumulating against the prisoner; and finally closed with so exact an appearance of the consistency of fact, that in spite of his solemn and repeated denials of the whole charge, the able efforts of his counsel to rebut the direct bearings of the testimony, and his high character-eagerly and amply sustained by voluntary witnesses of the greatest respectability-a jury of his countrymen found him guilty of the capital crime, and sentence of death was recorded against him.

It was thought by many, hard-hearted in the judge to leave, from the moment after the verdict was pronounced, no hope of mercy for the criminal. To all representations (and many were made) of the value of the evidence in the prisoner's favour, it was replied "that the offence was too dangerous to society ever to be pardoned, and that his previous good conduct aggravated the guilt; since, from his station and circumstances, he had no visible temptations to fraud. And yet," continued the judge, "guilty of deli

berate felony, this man undoubtedly is—if ever a crime can be proved, which no one has been seen to commit."

The suspense in which the family of James Frankland had passed nine dreadful hours, was now terminated by the certainty of their doom of unutterable affliction. Mr. Vincent, the clergyman stood by the side of the widowed mother when she lifted up her eyes, and reading in them the question which her lips had no power to utter, he clapsed her hand in his own, saying, sorrowfully, "Commit your innocent child to the mercy of his God; for innocent I feel assured he is, of the crime for which he is doomed to suffer!" She drew a long gasp of unutterable agony, and fell insensible on the floor. Her daughter, down whose pale and hollow cheek not a tear flowed, made no attempt to raise her, but kneeled at her side, gazing upon her features with a fixed and wild stare-rigid as a figure of stone. The boy, who had been praying with them, rushed to the bed-room once his brother's, and flung himself on the tenantless bed, groaning aloud in agony.

These wretched beings spent the night, immediately following the condemnation of one so deeply beloved, togetner. At length the morning dawned, bringing for them no comfort. James had wished to see his mother once more for the last time; but her reason seemed so nearly giving way under the crushing weight of her calamity, that the minister, who gave up his whole time to going from one to the other, succeeded in persuading him that it was better to spare her a trial which would probably destroy her life, or render her an incurable maniac during her remaining years. But the fortitude of affection, stronger than the grave, bore up his sister through the sorrows of their interview: and though they met only to cast themselves into each other's arms, while no word was spoken, they felt that to have been withheld from such a meeting, would have added bitterness to