His arms are grown hard by the swing of the axe;
  His palms dry and grain'd by the sap of the wood;
His hair, once all waves, now wind-hackled flax,
  But he feeleth no change in his blood.

The winds are gone down, the night-hours are dead,
  Yet silence so sad that it hints of no dawn;
The Blue Mountain hurricanes rang round his head,
  Then left him in statue-trance, firm though forlorn.

The black snake lies torpid beneath tbe dead logs,
  Or creeps o'er the sludge to the mouldering dell,
Where luminous fungi, and leaden-grey frogs,
  Each other confront—spell-bound, and a spell.

By the cold water-reptiles' humming quire
  The silence is magnetised: hark! the weird tune!
A chsrr'd trunk appears—the black ghost of fire:
  Bogs and frogs, and the mist, and the moon.

In this Hades of hopelessness, think not he grieves,
  Or feels his strong soul-life one moment despond.
He believes in himself, because he believes
  In the Voice of a Spirit beyond!

QUITE ALONE.

BOOK THE SECOND: WOMANHOOD.
CHAPTER LVI. AT REST.

SEEING that the countess was seriously
injured, Mr. M'Variety elevated himself upon the
edge of the ring, and inquired if there were a
doctor present. There were several doctors
present, all eager and anxious to distinguish
themselves in the eyes of the public. There
never is any lack of practitioners when accidents
occur at places of public entertainment. M.D.s
in the stalls, M.B.s in the boxes, M.R.C.S.s in
the pit; dentists in the slips, and herbalists in
the gallery. It is like asking a question of a
clever class at a normal school; a score of arms
go up at once. Get off your horse in a London
thoroughfare, when you don't happen to be
attended by a groom, and bridle-holders innumerable
start up out of the earth. Medical advice
was showered thickly upon Mr. M'Variety;
pouring over from the boxes, the circle, and the
amphitheatre into the arena, like a cataract of
healing waters. Mr. M'Variety would have
been puzzled how to act, had he not recognised
among the volunteers a personal friend of
his own. This gentleman being singled out to
attend the case, the others retired in high
dudgeon, feeling themselves greatly aggrieved
that they had not been allowed to deny
themselves a night's rest, and be the instruments of
alleviating suffering at the sacrifice of their
comfort and of the ordinary reward, which none
of them looked for, or would have accepted, if
it had been offered to them.

Some horse-cloths were spread upon one of the
spring-boards used by the Bounding Brothers of
Babylon, and the countess being laid upon this,
was carried out of the ring into the property-room
behind the curtain. Sir William Long had
gone to the countess's dressing-room to break
the news to Lily, and to offer her what assistance
and comfort he could under her new trial. He
found her in great agitation, for she had heard
the commotion in the circus, and divined that
something had happened to her mother. When
Sir William told her that the countess had
fallen from the horse and was seriously hurt, the
girl sank into a chair, and wept and sobbed
bitterly. She had little cause to weep for such
a mother; but in that one moment of her
misfortune, she forgot and forgave all, and thought of
the harsh cruel woman only with love and
tenderness and pity.

"I trust, Lily," said Sir William, " I trust you
will permit me to be your friend under this
trial. I ask for nothing but to be allowed to
serve you."

"Oh, Sir William, you are very kind, very
good," the weeping girl said, rising, and clasping
his hands with both hers. " I shall ever,
ever be grateful to you."

Again that cold word! Sir William sighed,
and looked at her sadly, taking her little hands
between his own, and patting them tenderly.

"Where is my mother?" Lily asked. " I
must go to her."

"Stay," said Sir William. " I think you had
better not go to her now. It would be too
painful; she is under the care of a doctor, and
to-morrow she may be better. Wait a little."

"No, no," said Lily; "let me go to her at
once; it is my duty. She—she is my mother!"

"Let me accompany you, then," said the
baronet; " perhaps I can be of some service."

Lily accepted the offer with gratitude; and,
taking her hand, Sir William led her, as he
would have led a child, out of the dressing-room
and along the dark passage into the shed, to
which the insensible form of her mother had
been removed.

It had been determined to take the injured
woman to the Cottage at once, and four men
were carrying her from the circus into the
gardens. She was lying in a shapeless heap on
the spring-board, covered with horse-cloths.
Sir William and Lily, hand in hand, followed
the melancholy procession across the stone-paved
yard, among litter and property chariots, and
horses showing their hind quarters through the
open doors of the stables; out through the
narrow stage entrance of the circus, where the
spring-board had scarcely room to turn; out
into the gardens and down the broad walk
among the coloured lights, blinking wearily
and unsteadily in their cups; under the gaunt
and leafless trees, nodding their bare branches
like the stalks of funeral plumes that had been
stripped of their feathers; past the spectral
ash-trees suspending their skeleton hands over
the seats of pleasure; moving slowly among
the whitewashed statues bathed from head to
foot in greenish tears, wrung from the anguish
of blighted leaves and the moisture of winter
mosses desperately clinging to their verdure—
the men passed along with their moaning burden
to the Cottage.

Among those who walked by the side of the
litter, and close to the figure that lay upon it,