monument of antiquity to put a question to the
government of the day touching its future
destiny?

A WISH.

FAIR tender flower sure art thou, Jessamine!
Emblem most meet of wedded Woman's heart,
That through the livelong day thy fragrance storest
Precious, within its cells: and when at eve,
Weary and faint, the toiler homeward hies,
Cheerest with stealing sweets his languid sense:
Softenest a spirit sullen grown with care
To softer meditation!
Such be she
Whose voice, if Heaven deign grant life's chiefest
boon,
Shall change my now too solitary hour!

LOIS THE WITCH.

IN THREE PARTS. PART THE FIRST.

IN the year 1691, Lois Barclay stood on a
little wooden pier, steadying herself on the
stable land, in much the same manner as, eight
or nine weeks ago, she had tried to steady
herself on the deck of the rocking ship which had
carried her across from Old to New England.
It seemed as strange now to be on solid earth
as it had been not long ago to be rocked by the
sea, both by day and by night; and the aspect
of the land was equally strange. The forests
which showed in the distance all round, and
which in truth were not very far from the wooden
houses forming the town of Boston, were of
different shades of green, and different, too, in
shape of outline to those which Lois Barclay
knew well in her old home in Warwickshire.
Her heart sank a little as she stood alone, waiting
for the captain of the good ship Redemption,
the kind rough old sailor, who was her only
known friend in this unknown continent. Captain
Holdernesse was busy, however, as she saw,
and it would probably be some time before he
would be ready to attend to her; so Lois sat
down on one of the casks that lay about, and
wrapped her grey duffle cloak tight about her,
and sheltered herself under her hood as well as
might be from the piercing wind, which seemed
to follow those whom it had tyrannised over at
sea with a dogged wish of still tormenting them
on land. Very patiently did Lois sit there,
although she was weary, and shivering with cold;
for the day was severe for May, and the
Redemption, with store of necessaries and comforts
for the Puritan colonists of New England, was
the earliest ship that had ventured across the
seas.

How could Lois help thinking of the past,
and speculating on the future, as she sat on
Boston pier, at this breathing-time of her life?
In the dim sea-mist which she gazed upon with
aching eyes (filled, against her will, with tears
from time to time), there rose the little village
church of Barford (not three miles from
Warwick, you may see it yet), where her father had
preached ever since 1661, long before she was
born. Her father and mother both lay dead in
Barford churchyard; and the old low grey
church could hardly come before her vision
without her seeing the old parsonage too, the
cottage covered with Austrian roses, and yellow
jessamine, where she had been born, sole child
of parents already long past the prime of youth.
She saw the path, not a hundred yards long,
from the parsonage to the vestry-door: that path
which her father trod daily; for the vestry was
his study, and the sanctum, where he studied the
ponderous tomes of the fathers, and compared
their precepts with those of the authorities of
the Anglican Church of that day, the day of the
later Stuarts; for Barford Parsonage at that
time scarcely exceeded in size and dignity the
cottages by which it was surrounded, it only
contained three rooms on a floor, and was only
two stories high. On the first, or ground floor,
were the parlour, kitchen, and back, or working
kitchen; up-stairs, Mr. and Mrs. Barclay's room,
that belonging to Lois, and the maid-servant's
room. If a guest came, Lois left her own chamber,
and shared old Clemence's bed. But those
days were over. Never more should Lois see
father or mother on earth; they slept, calm and
still, in Barford churchyard, careless of what
became of their orphan-child, as far as earthly
manifestations of care or love went. And
Clemence lay there too; bound down in her
grassy grave by withers of the briar-rose which
Lois had trained over those three precious graves
before leaving England for ever.

There were some who would fain have kept
her there; one who swore in his heart a great
oath unto the Lord that he would seek her
sooner or later, if she was still upon the earth.
But he was the rich heir and only son of the
Miller Lucy, whose mill stood by the Avon-side
in the grassy Barford meadows, and his father
looked higher for him than the penniless daughter
of Parson Barclay (so low were parsons esteemed
in those days!), and the very suspicion of Hugh
Lucy's attachment to Lois Barclay made his
parents think it more prudent not to offer the
orphan a home, although none other of the
parishioners had the means, even if they had
the will, to do so.

So Lois swallowed her tears down till the
time came for crying, and acted upon her
mother's words:

"Lois, thy father is dead of this terrible fever,
and I am dying. Nay, it is so, though I am
easier from pain for these few hours, the Lord
be praised. The cruel men of the Commonwealth
have left thee very friendless. Thy
father's only brother was shot down at Edgehill.
I, too, have a brother, though thou hast never
heard me speak of him, for he was a schismatic,
and thy father and he had words, and he left for
that new country beyond the seas without ever
saying farewell to us. But Ralph was a kind
lad till he took up these new-fangled notions,
and for the old days' sake he will take thee in,
and love thee as a child, and place thee among
his children. Blood is thicker than water.
Write to him as soon as I am gone for, Lois,
I am going and I bless the Lord that has letten