blessing. And then let never a word of the
terrible past be spoken between us."

"It's not for me to forgive you as never did
harm to no one——"

"But say you do—it will ease my heart."

"I forgive thee!" said he. And then he
raised himself to his feet with effort, and standing
up above her, he blessed her solemnly.

After that he sat down, she by him, gazing at
him.

"Yon's a good man, missy," said he, at length,
lifting his slow eyes and looking at her.
"Better nor t'other ever was."

"He is a good man," said Ellinor.

But no more was spoken on the subject.
The next day, Canon Livingstone made his
formal call. Ellinor would fain have kept Miss
Monro in the room, but that worthy lady knew
better than to stop.

They went on, forcing talk on indifferent
subjects. At last he could speak no longer
on everything but that which he had most at
heart. "Miss Wilkins!" (he had got up, and
was standing by the mantelpiece, apparently
examining the ornaments upon it)—"Miss
Wilkins! is there any chance of your giving me
a favourable answer now—you know what I
mean—what we spoke about at the Great
Western Hotel, that day?"

Ellinor hung her head.

"You know that I was once engaged before?"

"Yes! I know; to Mr. Corbet—he that is
now the judge—you cannot suppose that would
make any difference—if that is all. I have
loved you, and you only, ever since we met
eighteen years ago—Miss Wilkins—Ellinor—
put me out of suspense."

"I will!" said she, putting out her thin white
hand for him to take and kiss, almost with tears
of gratitude, but she seemed frightened at his
impetuosity, and tried to check him. "Wait—
you have not heard all—my poor, poor father,
in a fit of anger, irritated beyond his bearing,
struck the blow that killed Mr. Dunster—
Dixon and I knew of it, just after the blow was
struck—we helped to hide it—we kept the secret
—my poor father died of sorrow and remorse—
you now know all—can you still love me? It
seems to me as if I had been an accomplice in
such a terrible thing!"

"Poor, poor Ellinor!" said he, now taking
her in his arms as to a shelter. "How I wish
I had known of all this years and years ago: I
could have stood between you and so much!"

Those who pass through the village of Bromham,
and pause to look over the laurel-hedge
that separates the rectory garden from the
road, may often see, on summer days, an old,
old man, sitting in a wicker-chair, out upon the
lawn. He leans upon his stick, and seldom raises
his bent head; but for all that his eyes are on a
level with the two little fairy children who come
to him in all their small joys and sorrows, and
who learn to lisp his name, almost as soon as
they do that of their father and mother.

Nor is Miss Monro often absent; and although
she prefers to retain the old house in the Close
for winter quarters, she generally makes her
way across to Canon Livingstone's residence
every evening.

SO ENDS "A DARK NIGHT'S WORK."

OLD ALEXANDRIA.

A TRACT of Egyptian desert sand
Sweeping in undulating swells,
A low sea-beach without pebbles or shells,
Patches of meagre sun-burnt grasses
Through which the sea-wind whirrs as it passes
Across the desolate strand.
Fragments of marble, grey and white,
Basalt like iron and black as night,
Rich red porphyry, and verd antique
And here and there the skull of a Greek
That crumbles to dust in your hand.

For when a fellah has need of stones
To make his miserable den,
He goes and robs the buried men;
And in the great Necropolis
You often come on a deep abyss
In whose sides are many a broken tomb,
And if you peer into their inner gloom
You may see these dead men's bones.

Beneath a sandy shell-less shore
Lies scattered with fragments of masonry,
And marble pavements the Romans of yore
Spread out to make a dainty floor
For their baths in the tideless sea.

Like a dolphin in the throes of death
Those Mediterranean waters lie,
Dyed with violet, green and blue,
Gold and amber and every hue,
By the angry evening sky.
Down from the lowering purple cloud,
Suddenly drops the scarlet sun,
And a scarlet flash from the evening gun,
And a burst of sluggish smoke, snow-white,
And a thunder sullen and loud
Come over the sea, and the day dies down
To his grave in the wave with an angry frown,
And I wander home thro' the night.

RATHER A STRONG DOSE.

"DOCTOR JOHN CAMPBELL, the minister of
the Tabernacle Chapel, Finsbury, and editor of
the British Banner, &c., with that massive
vigour which distinguishes his style," did, we
are informed by Mr. HOWITT, "deliver a verdict
in the Banner, for November, 1852," of great
importance and favour to the Table-rapping
cause. We are not informed whether the
Public, sitting in judgment on the question,
reserved any point in this great verdict for
subsequent consideration; but the verdict would
seem to have been regarded by a perverse
generation as not quite final, inasmuch as Mr.
Howitt finds it necessary to re-open the case,
a round ten years afterwards, in nine hundred
and sixty-two stiff octavo pages, published by
Messrs. Longman and Company.

Mr. Howitt is in such a bristling temper on
the Supernatural subject, that we will not take
the great liberty of arguing any point with him.
But—with the view of assisting him to make