murdered thee; and hollow groans broke on the midnight gale. The voice of the fiendish astrologer was heard shouting as from a charnel-house, 'the destiny is accomplished, and the victim may retire with honour.' Then, methought the fair front of heaven was obscured, and thick, clotted, clammy blood was showered down in torrents from the blackened clouds of the west. The star shot through the air; and the phantom of my mo ther again beckoned me to follow."

The maniac ceased, and rushed in agony from the apartment; Marcelia followed, and discovered him leaning in a trance against the wainscot of the library. With gentlest motion she drew his hand in her's, and led him into the open air; they rambled on, heedless of the gathering storm, until they discovered themselves at the base of the tower of Hernswolf.-Suddenly the maniac paused;-a horrid thought seemed flashing across his brain, as with a giant grasp he seized Marcelia in his arms, and bore her to the fatal apartment.— In vain she shrieked for help, for pity

"Dear Reginald, it is Marcelia who speaks, you cannot surely harm her."

He heard he heeded not, nor once staid his steps, till he reached the room of death. On a sudden his countenance lost its wildness, and assumed a most fearful, but more composed look of determined madness. He advanced to the window, and gazed on the stormy face of heaven.-Dark clouds flitted across the horizon,

and the hollow thunder echoed awfully in the distance. To the west, the fatal star was still visible, but shone with sickly lustre. At this instant a flash of lightning illumed the whole apartment, and threw a broad red glare upon a skeleton that mouldered upon the floor. Reginald observed with affright, and remembered the unburied astrologer. He advanced to Marcelia, and

pointing to the rising moon→→

"A dark cloud is sailing by-thou shalt die ;-I will accompany thee in death, and hand-in-hand will we pass into the presence of our mother."

The poor girl shrieked for pity, but her voice was lost in the angry ravings of the storm. The cloud in the mean time sailed on, it approached-the moon was dimmed-darkened, and finally buried in its gloom.

The maniac marked the hour, and rushed with a fearful cry towards his victim. With murderous resolution he grasped her throat, while the helpless hand and half-strangled articulation, implored his compassion. After one final struggle, the hollow death-rattle announced that life was extinct, and that the murderer held a corpse in his arms. An interval of reason now occurred, and on the partial restoration of his mind, Reginald discovered himself the unconscious murderer of Marcelia. Madness, deepest madness, again took possession of his faculties :-he laughed, he shouted aloud with the unearthly yellings of a fiend, and in the raging violence of his delirium, hurled himself headlong from the summit of the tower.

In the morning, the bodies of the young couple were discovered, and they were buried in the same tomb. The ruin of Hernswolf still exists; but is now commonly avoided as the residence of the spirits of the departed. Day by day it slowly crumbles to earth, and affords a shelter for the night ravens, or the wild brutes of the forest. Superstition has consecrated it to herself, and the tradition of the country has invested it with all the awful appendages of a charnel-house. The wanderer who passes at night-fall, shudders while he surveys its utter desolation, and exclaims as he passes on-” Surely this is a spot where guilt may thrive in safety, or bigotry weave a spell to inthral her misguided votaries!"

THE TWO SISTERS.

ROUSSEAU has somewhere declared, that cunning is given by nature to woman for the best ends; and perhaps in this respect he is right; for, although this is a quality we all dislike, there are two kinds of it. One is indeed hateful, while the other is in some cases necessary; and it is certain that in all love matters, many minds not otherwise disingenuous, and possessing the most amiable qualities, have recourse to it in the progress of that passion, which, in some modification or other, visits every female breast. This was never more clearly exemplified than in the early history of a very dear aunt of mine, who at fourteen was a gay little romp, as artless, simple, pretty, and good-tempered a creature, as had ever been known in the parish of New-h.

This parish is a retired district in the mountainous parts of Cumberland, on the banks of the most beautiful lake which that county can boast. It is very little known even now; but, fifty years ago, when southern

travellers seldom made a tour (since become so fashionable), this place, which is embosomed in the mountains, might be called Terra Incognita. Here lived, where his progenitors had long lived, Walter Claye, gent., maintaining (as they had done) the character of the second man in his parish in point of property, but the first in some other things; for he had been educated at Oxford, was happy in the society of a clever and well-portioned wife, and was the father of a very fine young family; whereas the 'squire, though he inherited a better estate and had a larger house, was a plain old bachelor, and was, with two antiquated sisters, sinking into the vale of years, and the quiet obscurity which is their best accompaniment.

Mr. Claye had been intended for the church, to which one younger son at least in every Cumberland family is destined; but the accidental death of his elder brother called him from his studies to the agricultural duties of a 'statesman, which means, a cultivator of his own land, in distinction from a farmer. No man could know less of the subject than Walter, and no man could have less relish for it; but in that country and in those days, it would have been considered high-treason against all the duties of life, for any eldest son to change the situation in which God had placed him, and there was no desire to rebel in my grandfather. He therefore laid aside his books with a gentle sigh, and began to learn so much of rural economy as might preserve his inheritance. In