ply. "Would you have still more? Ambition is allowable in all conditions. Will the title of jeweller to the queen tempt you? Is it fortune that you pursue? Speak, young man; there are stones in the queen's treasury that would dazzle the richest jewellers on earth. Is it ranknobility even? Speak! If your heart be high, our power is great also! Dare all! royalty raises and purifies all that approach it."

Samuel stood irresolute. "A title," he murmured. "A coat of arms for my plebeian love; but no," he added, "another tiara, a more beautiful diadem than hers-and I to procure her the humiliation!"

"You agree?" asked Catherine.
"I refuse."

At this answer the queen recoiled from him; her wishes, excited by this unexpected resistance, and by these alternations of hope and fear, had increased in violence; she was pale and mute with anger, and walked round the oratory like a wild animal, while her looks betrayed her intense hatred. The room, hung with ‍a dark arras, was dimly lit by a single lamp; and the resigned and pensive air of the young man, the savage looks of the queen, whose dress glittered with jewels, which clattered in her rapid movements like the rattle of a deadly snake, all combined to give a frightful character to this scene. Catherine suddenly tranquillized herself; her face again wore its mask of sweetness, her brow cleared, and she calmly seated herself on one of those high and straight chairs we now prize so highly; and pushing forward a cushion of crimson velvet, fringed with gold, she signed to Samuel to seat himself at her feet. The young jeweller timidly bent his knee on the gorgeous cushion, and looked at her with surprise.

66

Catherine smiled. You are a brave man, master Samuel. Frankness and good faith are rare at court; women, and queens above all, are often offended by them; but I respect them greatly-I like you." Samuel bowed low. The queen continued, with a benignant mannerAt your age, a long career is before you, and with your disposition you may aspire to much. I will watch over you." Samuel placed his hand on a grateful heart. “But you have a family?"

"I am alone in the world, madam," he replied, with a trembling voice.

The queen drew nearer to him, as with compassion. "You have parents or friends."

"I have never known my parents-I never

had a friend."

"What! no one to pity-no one to love you?" Catherine slowly dropped these words in her softest accents.

"No one," murmured Samuel.

The queen stifled a sigh; he raised his head and blushed, as he met her ardent gaze. Catherine wore that night a black velvet dress, opening low in the neck, and fastened from the waist downwards by a double row of precious stones; she was bending over him in an attitude

of mingled coquettishness and kindness; and her taper fingers played with the ornaments of her chair. "Your modesty blinds you," she continued ; you must be loved; some timid girl has chosen you, and hides her hopes from the world. Tell me, Samuel; do not fear, I will protect your beloved. The benefits you have refused for yourself shall be for her.”

As the queen spoke, her voice trembled with emotion; she seemed as if she feared to hear, and yet no longer doubted. Re-assured by Samuel's silence, she hastened to add, "I understand you at length; ambition and pride have maddened you-I have guessed it; nay, do not tremble thus; the love which aspires is the worthier a noble heart."

"Madam," murmured Samuel, no longer master of himself, "I dare not respect

fear"

Just then, Catherine, by a movement which had become habitual to her, raised her dress, and discovered a delicate ankle, whose beauties were enhanced by a stocking of the finest black silk, while the glittering gems in her robes "In your hands,” dazzled the young jeweller. she said, touching the brilliant clasps as if she had forgotten the former subject of conversation, "these stones would form an unequalled orna ment-we women love diamonds; they add to our beauty: these become me, I think, as a gentleman's sword would you, Samuel." He would not understand her. The queen bit her lips, and continued, in an indifferent tone, "You love a noble lady, one of the court-of course she is beautiful." her elegant foot; its high instep proudly curv She pushed forward ing in her satin shoe.

Spare me, madam," murmured Samuel, "I dare not look so high."

A brilliant smile illuminated Catherine's features: "Noble and powerful — above all other women."

"But one-your majesty."

"Insolent varlet!" exclaimed the queen, suddenly rising. Without, there!" she cried. "Send forth this minion, whom my kindness has emboldened!"

When Catherine, half an hour later, reappeared in the banqueting-room, where her absence had caused great anxiety, a bitter smile had effaced the angry expression which before distorted her features. The volcano was at rest, but an observer might distinguish the clouds which dwelt on its summit.

(To be continued.)

FEMININE PROGRESS.-The full richness of the female nature has not yet been brought out. Interesting, amiable, admirable, and beautiful as it has displayed itself to be, yet it is capable of becoming even far more so than it is. * In this country the female character has been steadily advancing in a manifest progression; always amiable and beneficial, it is more so now than it ever has been; and it appears to be advancing both in the useful and in the interesting qualities. It cannot, however, improve beyond the ratio of a correspondent amelioration in our own. The male and female heart and mind must equally improve for either to do so. They are too much interested to have each other's good opinion and favour, for either to be what the other disapproves of. Hence, while the man is savage, the woman is uncultivated; when he is stationary, so is she; when he is profligate, she sinks to debasement. But let him only elevate himself, and sanction her elevation, and she will ever be emulous to be honoured by him, and to be a blessing to him. Her intellectual beauties will attract and guide him to new excellences, and these will be patterns to her, and raise her imitating docilities and desire of his praise, to make her a fairy of kindness and comfort to him, and a brilliant ornament of our common nature. Such the female world ever tends to be, and it is most usually our own fault if we ever find them otherwise.-Sacred History of the World, by Sharon Turner.

WORSHIP IN THE EAST.-The Mahomedan day begins at sunset, when the first time of prayer is observed; the second is about two hours after sunset; the third is at the dawn of day, when the musical chant of the muezzins from the thousand minarets of Cairo sounds most impressively through the clear and silent air. The voices of the criers thus raised above the city always struck me as having a holy and beautiful effect. First one or two are heard faintly in the distance, then one close to you, then the cry is taken up from the minarets of other mosques; and at last, from one end of the town to the other, the measured chant falls pleasingly on the ear, inviting the faithful to prayer. For a time it seems as if there was a chorus of voices in the air, like spirits calling upon each other to worship the Creator of all things. Soon the sound dies away; there is a silence for a while, and then commence the hum and bustle of the awakening city. This cry of man, to call his brother man to prayer, seems to me more appropriate and more accordant to religious feeling than the clang and jingle of our European bells. The fourth and most important time of prayer is noon, and it is at this hour that the Sultan attends in state the mosque at Constantinople. The fifth and last prayer is

at about three o'clock. The Bedouins of the Desert, who, however, are not much given to praying, consider this hour to have arrived when a stick, a spear, or a camel, throws a shadow of its own height upon the ground. This time of day is called "Al Assr." When wandering about in the deserts, I used always to eat my dinner or luncheon at that time, and it is wonderful to what exactness I arred at last in my calculations respecting the Assr. I knew to a minute when my dromedary's shadow was of the right length.-Curzon's Visits to Monasteries in the Levant.

AN ELEGY, WRITTEN IN A LONDON

CHURCHYARD.

BY A TRADESMAN IN THE VICINITY.

The sexton tolls the knell till parting day,

The latest funeral train has paid its fee, The mourners homeward take their dreary way, And leave the scene to Typhus and to me.

Now fades the crowded graveyard on the sight,
But all, its air who scent, their nostrils hold,
Save where the beadle drones, contented quite,
And drowsy mutes their arms in slumber fold.

Save where, hard by yon soot-incrusted tower,
Of such as would, by sanitary power,
A Reverend Man does o'er his port complain,

Invade his ancient customary gain.

Beneath those arid mounds, that dead wall's shade,
All in their narrow cells together laid,
Where grows no turf above the mouldering heap,

The former people of the parish sleep.

The queasy call of sewage-breathing morn,
The ox, urged bellowing to the butcher's shed,
The crowd's loud clamouring at his threatening horn,
No more shall rouse them from their loathly bed.

For them no more the chamber-light shall burn,
The busy doctor ply his daily care,
Nor children to their sire from school return,

And climb his knees the dreaded pest to share.

Good folks, impute not to their friends the fault,

If memory o'er their bones no tombstone raise; Where there lie dozens huddled in one vault,

No art can mark the spot where each decays.

No doubt, in this revolting place are laid

Hearts lately pregnant with infectious fire; Hands, by whose grasp contagion was conveyed, As sure as electricity by wire.

Full many a gas of direst power unclean

The dark o'erpeopled graves of London bear, Full many a poison, born to kill unseen,

And spread its rankness in the neighbouring air.

Some district Surgeon, that with dauntless breast The epidemic 'mongst the poor withstood, Some brave, humane Physician here may rest, Some Curate, martyrs to infected blood.

To some doomed breast the noxious vapour flies, Some luckless lung the deadly reek inspires, Even from the tomb morbific fumes arise,

Even in men's ashes live Disorder's fires.

For thee, who, shocked to see the unhonoured dead,
Dost in these lines their shameful plight relate;
If, chance, by sanitary musings led,
Some graveyard-gleaner shall inquire thy fate-

Haply some muddle-headed clerk will say,

We used to see him at the peep of dawn, Shaving with hasty strokes his beard away, Whene'er his window-curtains were undrawn.

There would he stand o'erlooking yonder shed, That hides those relics from the public eye, And watch what we were doing with the dead, And count the funerals daily going by.

One morn we missed him in the 'customed shop;
Behind the counter where he used to be,
Another served; nor at his early chop,

Nor at the "Cock," nor at the "Cheese," was he. The next, by special wish, with small array,

To Kensall Green we saw our neighbour borne,
Thither go read (if thou canst read) the lay
With which a chum his headstone did adorn.
THE EPITAPH.

Here rest with decency the bones in earth,
Of one to Comfort and to Health unknown;
Miasma ever plagued his humble hearth,
And Scarlatina marked him for her own.
Long was his illness, tedious and severe;
Hard by a London Churchyard dwelt our friend;
He followed to the grave a neighbour's bier,
He met thereby ('twas what he feared) his end.
No longer seek Corruption to enclose

Within the places of mankind's abode;
But far from cities let our dust repose,
Where daisies blossom on the verdant clod.
-Punch.

THE CROCK OF GOLD: THE TWINS: HEART. Three Tales, by M. F. Tupper, Esq.; with Illustrations by Leech. (Hall, Virtue, & Co.) -Those enterprising publishers, Messrs. Hall, Virtue, and Co., have done some service to the public by producing, in a very elegant and cheap form, a reprint of these effective and edifying tales. When they first came out, we had the pleasure of calling the attention of our readers to the uncommon merit of these stories: time and their success have fortified our opinion: indeed such works are among those "which the world will not willingly let die." They breathe that high tone of nature, truth, self-denial, courage, morality, and heroism, so well calculated to elevate and entertain an extensive circle of readers. There is also an abundance of stirring emotion, keen raillery, and delicate sarcasm in Mr. Tupper's style of narration; the interest is sustained, and the purpose of the story is artistically worked out. We extract the following as a specimen of this celebrated author's genial kind of eloquence: the subject is one with which probably many of our readers will sympathise :

cicatrised, or her soft feelings seared, without a thousand secret pangs? Hath it been no trial to see youthful bloom departing, and middle age creep on, without some intimate one to share the solitude of life? Ay, and the coming prospect too-hath it faintly common friends can fill that hollow of the greater consolations than the retrospect? How heart! how feebly can their kindness, at the warmest, imitate the sympathies and love of married life! And in the days of sickness, or the hour of death, to be lonely, childless, husbandless-to be lightly cared for, little missed-who can wonder that all those bruised and broken yearnings should ferment within the solitary mind, and sometimes sour up the milk of human kindness? Be more considerate, more just, more loving to that injured heart of woman; it hath loved deeply in its day: nipped those early blossoms; and often generosity but imperative duty or untoward circumstance towards others, or the constancy of youthful blighted love, has made it thus alone. There was an age in this world's history, and may be yet again (if Heart is ever to be monarch of this social sphere), when they who lived and died as Jephtha's daughter were reckoned worthily with saints and martyrs. Heed thou, thus, of many such; for they have offered up their hundred warm yearnings-a hecatomb of hu man love-to God, the betrothed of their affections; and they move up and down among this incon

of pure benevolence, and beneficent beyond the widow's mite. Heed kinder then, and blush for very shame, O man and woman looking on this noble band of ill-requited virgins; remember all their trials, and imitate their deeds; for among the legion of that unregarded sisterhood whom you coldly call old maids, are often seen the world's chief almoners of warm unselfish sympathy, generous in mind if not in means, and blooming with the immortal youth of charity and kindliness.