The new day had risen. The broad grey dawn
flowed in on her, over the quiet eastern sea.

She saw the waters, heaving large and silent in
the misty calm; she felt the fresh breath of the
morning flutter cool on her face. Her strength
returned; her mind cleared a little. At the sight
of the sea, her memory recalled the walk in the
garden, overnight, and the picture which her
distempered fancy had painted on the black void.
In thought, she saw the picture again—the
murderer hurling the Spud of the plough into the air,
and setting the life or death of the woman who
had deserted him, on the hazard of the falling
point. The infection of that terrible superstition
seized on her mind, as suddenly as the new day
had burst on her view. The promise of release
which she saw in it from the horror of her own
hesitation, roused the last energies of her despair.
She resolved to end the struggle, by setting her
life or death on the hazard of a chance.

On what chance?

The sea showed it to her. Dimly distinguishable
through the mist, she saw a little fleet of coasting
vessels slowly drifting towards the house, all
following the same direction with the favouring
set of the tide. In half an hour—perhaps in less
—the fleet would have passed her window. The
hands of her watch pointed to four o'clock. She
seated herself close at the side of the window,
with her back towards the quarter from which
the vessels were drifting down on her—with the
poison placed on the window-sill, and the watch
on her lap. For one half hour to come, she
determined to wait there, and count the vessels
as they went by. If, in that time, an even number
passed her—the sign given, should be a sign
to live. If the uneven number prevailed—the
end should be Death.

With that final resolution, she rested her head
against the window, and waited for the ships to
pass.

The first came; high, dark, and near in the
mist; gliding silently over the silent sea. An
interval and the second followed, with the third
close after it. Another interval, longer and
longer drawn out- and nothing passed. She
looked at her watch. Twelve minutes; and three
ships. Three.

The fourth came; slower than the rest, larger
than the rest, farther off in the mist than the
rest. The interval followed; a long interval
once more. Then the next vessel passed; darkest
and nearest of all. Five. The next uneven
number—Five.

She looked at her watch again. Nineteen
minutes; and five ships. Twenty minutes.
Twenty-one, two, three—and no sixth vessel.
Twenty-four; and the sixth came by. Twenty-
five, twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight; and
the next uneven number—the fatal Seven—glided
into view. Two minutes to the end of the half-
hour. And seven ships.

Twenty-nine; and nothing followed in the
wake of the seventh ship. The minute-hand of
the watch moved on half way to thirty—and still
the white heaving sea was a misty blank. Without
moving her head from the window, she took
the poison in one hand, and raised the watch in
the other. As the quick seconds counted each
other out, her eyes, as quick as they, looked from
the watch to the sea, from the sea to the
watch—looked for the last time at the sea—and
saw the EIGHTH ship.

Life! At the last moment, Life!

She never moved; she never spoke. The
death of thought, the death of feeling, seemed to
have come to her already. She put back the
poison mechanically on the ledge of the window;
and watched, as in a dream, the ship gliding
smoothly on its silent way—gliding till it melted
dimly into shadow—gliding till it was lost in the
mist.

The strain on her mind relaxed, when the
Messenger of Life had passed from her sight.

"Providence?" she whispered faintly to
herself. "Or Chance?"

Her eyes closed, and her head fell back. When
the sense of life returned to her, the morning
sun was warm on her face—the blue heaven
looked down on her—and the sea was a sea of
gold.

She fell on her knees at the window, and burst
into tears.

* * * *

Towards noon that day, the captain, waiting
below stairs, and hearing no movement in
Magdalen's room, felt uneasy at the long silence. He
desired the new maid to follow him up-stairs;
and, pointing to the door, told her to go in softly,
and see whether her mistress was awake.

The maid entered the room; remained there a
moment; and came out again, closing the door
gently.

"She looks beautiful, sir," said the girl;
"and she's sleeping as quietly as a new-born
child."

VICTORIA'S IRONSIDES.

THERE is a good deal of discussion in extremes,
about British defences. We say nothing of the
outrageous fortification scheme, the armament
of Portsdown Hill, the forts upon the sandy
flats of the Horse and Noman at Spithead, or
the building down into the sea at Plymouth.
But we look to the ships. The famous iron-
clad Warrior is certainly a shade better than
the Gloire, though she does roll in the trough
of the sea to an angle of forty-five degrees, and
though she is apt to obey her helm in a way
that would shock any well-bred wooden sailing-
frigate. Shot and shell are said now to have
been developed into something so tremendous,
that a new gun or mortar is thought to be as
dangerous to wooden ships, as a tin of never-
mind-who's paste is to blackbeetles. " Wooden
fleets, however numerous, destroyed in one
night by the use of Wiggins's patent gun,"
is now the formula that is to whiten the
cheeks of British admirals, and make us all feel
like a nest of ants into whose hill a pig's snout