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perished; and with that ship perished the last hope of Phoebe Mowbray.

Grief does not kill at once. It may pull the stoutest hearted man to the earth, and compel him to grovel there; but he will not die. Pride, rage, love, joy-all passions kill soon, save grief. It leaves its victims to wither, and to wither slowly. They fall not like the tree of the forest beneath the woodman's axe; but they pine away like the sickly plant, which, though wounded at the core, requires a season to decay. Phoebe Mowbray had the same tenacity of life which is the curse of all the children of grief. A deep groan-a deadly shudder-an ejaculation to heaven for mercy on her lover's soul, was all of suffering that the world was enabled to note. Her father died, and she laid him in his grave without a tear-nay, many thought that she rather rejoiced at his death. She continued to instruct, to the utmost of her ability, the group of youngsters who daily conned their lessons under her lonely roof-a single apartment in the dingiest lane in Lyme, which served at once for parlour, school-room, and bed-chamber. Her heart was not-could not-possibly be with her task; but she had no other means to ward off starvation, and famine is a bitter death.

The principal piece of furniture in Phoebe's small and mean furnished apartment, was a huge old sea-chest which had belonged to her father. It had a large rusty padlock, was clasped with strong bands of iron, and being richly covered with hieroglyphics, excited mysterious apprehensions in the breast of every little truant acquainted with the localities of her dwelling. These apprehensions received strength from the singular reverence with which their mistress herself regarded it. She was never seen to produce the key of the rusty padlock; yet her eyes were almost constantly directed to the corner of the room where the chest was placed. To her it seemed to possess the fascination of the fabled basilisk. If an unlucky wight chanced in his frolics to touch it with the tip of his

finger, she would command him to desist in a voice that made the blood run cold at his little heart. That she did sometimes inspect its contents, be they what they might, was at length ascertained in the way that old maids' secrets are generally found out. A curly-pated rogue, who chanced to be prowling about her premises one morning long before school-hours, took the liberty of putting his eye to a crevice in the door of her apartment, and gravely reconnoitred the melancholy recluse within. The awe-inspiring chest was open; and if the varlet may be further credited, Phoebe was on her knees by its side praying and weeping alternately. A slight noise he inadvertently made disturbed her. She hurriedly closed the lid, and rushed to the door to detect the spy; but he succeeded in making his escape. That same day she sent for a carpenter, and had her door repaired, to the no small disappointment of her inquisitive pupils.

Hitherto the mysterious interest attached to the ancient chest had been confined to children; but the story propagated by the urchin, who had, in this instance violated her privacy, excited curiosity even among persons of mature age. Their conclusion was, that she had made it the repository of her little stock of money, perhaps the wreck of her father's property; and as she advanced in years, and grew lean and withered, this supposition gained general credence.

Time rolled on, and at forty years of age Phoebe Mowbray exhibited the wrinkles and gray hairs of seventy. The hum of the world was round her; but she heard it not; or, if hearing, heeded it not.-Her school dwindled away: boys hooted and threw filth at her whenever she showed her face beyond her own threshold; and, at length, she was left to depend solely for subsistence on the contents of the old sea-chest, and such supplies as her feline familiar, who was shrewdly suspected to be the evil one in disguise, might provide.

Phoebe's case, though pitiable, was not rare.

There are

few people who have lived any length of time in the world, that have not seen helpless womanhood similarly circumstanced. To be antiquated, wrinkled, povertystruck, and given to the nursing of cats, are unpardonable offences in the eyes of the rising generation. There is no species of animal which the mischievous school-boy delights more to torment than that ycleped an old maid. If she has a pet grimalkin, all his ingenuity is excited to bereave it of life: if a garden, not so much as a crabapple survives the season: if a house, ten to one but it is exposed to sap and mine, and she is burned in her bed, or blown like a rocket into the air. Even young damsels, forgetful of the fate that may await themselves, scruple not to lend a helping hand to degrade their antiquated sister. And yet, ill-treated though they be, there are old maids not a few, whom even the unjust neglect and scorn of the world have failed to render callous and irritable; and who, had their lot been reversed, would have shed joy round domestic hearths, and walked patterns of matronly virtue in the midst of happy families.

But to return to Phoebe. The neighbours, when her desertion became complete, heard many a half-suppressed groan of agony come from her solitary chamber, before they had the humanity to tender their assistance. But when her groans became deep and frequent-when they resembled screams of agony wrung by the fear of death from a hopeless sinner-they held counsel together, and determined that it was proper and charitable, and, perchance prudent, seeing she had a chest of the contents of which none knew the value, to pay her a visit. Her door was barricadoed, for she had laid herself down to die unseen; but they burst it open, and thronged in rabble-rout about her bed. There she lay, famished and speechless. They brought her food-wine; for it was a sight that humanised the most hardened; but she turned her loathing head away. They entreated her to make a will, and give up the key of the mysterious chest; but she answered

only by a wild cry, and by pressing her hands convulsively on her withered breast. A clergyman was sent for, and he knelt down by her side to pray; but he soon discovered that his presence and his prayers were alike inefficacious, and retired, giving it as his opinion that she was either a trembling saint, or a doomed sinner. When the pang of dissolution came, it cramped her in every limb; yet even in the final throes, her glassy eyes were fixed with horrid intensity on the old chest. When the struggle ended, and she lay still and stark, her long nails were found buried in her bosom, on which, suspended from her neck by a black ribbon, reposed the key of the rusty padlock. The finders were extremely anxious to use it without delay; but a pettifogging attorney, who happened to be present, smelling a job, insisted on taking it in charge, clapped his seal on the chest, and declared that it could not be opened without authority.

The hapless spinster was buried as a pauper. Her remains were laid beside those of her father; and neither sigh nor tear hallowed her grave. On the day she was interred, the old chest, with the iron clasps and rusty padlock, was opened, with some ceremony, in presence of the church-wardens and certain civic dignitaries belonging to the borough. The zealous attorney, and several other disinterested individuals, who had all of a sudden discovered that they were related to the deceased, were also in attendance. Then was the true cause of her cureless sorrow-her hopeless prayers-her mysterious reverence for that chest explained. What, reader, did it contain? Neither gold nor jewels, but the SKELETON

OF A CHILD WHICH HAD PERISHED IN THE HOUR OF ITS BIRTH!

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BALLAD.

BY T. HOOD, ESQ.

I love thee-I love thee!
'Tis all that I can say;
It is my vision in the night,
My dreaming in the day;
The very echo of my heart,
The blessing when I pray,
I love thee-I love thee,
Is all that I can say.

I love thee-I love thee!
Is ever on my tongue;
In all my proudest poesy,
That chorus still is sung;
It is the verdict of my eyes

Amidst the gay and young;
I love thee-I love thee,

A thousand maids among.

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[The following story, printed for private circulation, has been sent us by the author, with permission to insert it among our Selections. He has apparently sought to embody in the narrative of the sufferings of an aged individual—the fountain of whose sorrows the recurrence of a similar local visitation has again unsealed-a more vivid description of the striking and impressive

Our

* We need not tell our local readers what spate means. English ones, however, it may be as well to inform that it is the Scottish equivalent of flood.-ED.

No. 5.

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