"Does any one here remember a man, in a
volunteer uniform, who went off just now by
the down train?" This was my inquiry, addressed
to the first person I met at the station
—a porter, who referred me to the station
clerk, to whom I put the same question. This
man answered in the affirmative at once. His
attention had been particularly directed to this
volunteer, by his having required change for a
five-pound note, at the last moment, as the
train was going to start.

"For what place did he take his ticket?"

"Bristol."

"That man is a murderer," I said, "and
must be arrested. If you telegraph at once to
Bath, the message will be there long before the
train, and he can be stopped."

And so this terrible experience— the particulars
of which I have related just as they
occurred—came to an end. The murderer was
arrested at Bath, and on his being searched
the hundred pounds—except the small sum
which he had expended on his railway ticket—
were found upon him. The evidence against
him was in all points overwhelming. The
body of poor Mr. Irwin was discovered in the
little wood. I myself directed the search.
When it was concluded I wandered away to
the willow pond to look for the butterfly-net.
One end of the stick was visible above the
water, the other end being sunk by the weight
of the metal ring which was attached to it.

There was no link wanting in the mass
of proof. The evidence, which it was my part
to give on the trial, was irresistible. Great
attempts were made to shake it, to prove that
I might easily have made a mistake of identity;
and that such details as I had described could
not have been visible through the telescope at
such a distance. Opticians were consulted; experiments
were made. It was distinctly proved
that it was really possible for me to have seen
all that I stated I had seen; and though
there was much discussion raised about the
case, and though some of the newspapers took
it up, and urged that men's lives were not to
be sacrificed to the whims of "an idle gentleman
who chose to spend his afternoons in
looking out of window through a spy-glass,"
the jury returned a verdict against the prisoner,
and William Mason was convicted and hanged.

The reader may, perhaps, be sufficiently interested
in the facts of this case to be glad to
hear that the poor woman, who was the innocent
cause of the commission of this ghastly
crime, did get her hundred pounds after all,
though not from the hands of Mr. James Irwin.

THE ETERNAL PENDULUM.

          SWING on, old pendulum of the world,
              For ever and for ever,
          Keeping the time of suns and stars,
              The march that endeth never.
          Your monotone speaks joy and grief,
              And failure and endeavour,
          Swing on, old pendulum, to and fro,
              For ever and for ever!
          Long as you swing shall earth be glad,
          And men be partly good and bad,
          And in each hour that passes by,
          A thousand souls be born and die;
          Die from the earth, to live we trust,
          Unshackled, unallied with dust.
          Long as you swing shall wrong come right,
          As sure as morning follows night;
          The days go wrong—the ages never—
          Swing on, old pendulumswing for ever!

THE MERCHANT'S HANAPER.

"You have often wondered why I did
not marry Ashley Graham when I told you
that he asked me," Rose Mantell said to
me one evening, as we sat by the open
window looking out on the moonlight
quivering over the lake, and silvering the
old mountains like a fine hoar frost spread
over them; " and now you want to know
why I am going to America, where I have
no friends—at least, none you know of.
Well, I have always put you off when you
have questioned me, but to-night I will make
a clean breast of it, as people say, and tell
you my whole story."

You remember when we lived in Percy-
street, my brother James and I? and you
remember how poor we were, and what a
miserable thing we made of it together, he
with his painting and I with my music? We
did not hide things from you as we did
from others, but let you into the mysteries
of our numerous makeshifts and contrivances,
and how we managed to exist on
what others would have starved on. And
you remember how proud and sensitive
James was? and how, with his wretched
income—so hardly earned, too, poor fellow!
—he was determined to keep up appearances,
and never let the world know how
poor he was? It was hard work, I can
assure you; and the heavy end of the
stick fell to me; the heavy end of this kind
of stick always does fall to the woman; for,
as the housekeeper, I had to make the best
of things and to feel the worst, to pull the
two gaping ends together as well as I could
and to put myself in the gap when I could
not.

Of course you remember Ashley Graham,
my brother's great friend? They had been
students together at the Academy; and
once or twice in old days James had been
down to the Lakes where Ashley lived; and
in his humble modest way, dear fellow,
looked up to his friend as to a superior
being infinitely beyond him in everything.
Certainly Ashley's family was better than
ours; and, though they were all ruined