(who was a medical student), for the purpose
of asking his assistance; that he then found
the light gone, and could distinguish nothing
in the room; that he next tapped at the
window, and receiving no answer, concluded
that his friend was absent. This was at half-
past two o'clock in the morning. The
supposition of murder has, however, since been
disproved, by the discovery that the deceased
had addressed a letter to a friend in Brussels,
on Thursday, informing him of his intention
to commit suicide that night. Losses at the
gaming-table, and the dread of apprehension
for a forgery committed in Paris, are
supposed to have led to the act. The cause of
the disappearance of M. Valentine, however,
is still enveloped in mystery."

It was not enveloped in mystery long, I
thank Heaven; for, with my heart lightened
of its enormous load, I returned and made
my statement. But I never more ate, drank,
or slept, in that terrible room.

SCHOOL FRIENDSHIP.

WE were friends when our childish natures
    Cared little for rank, I ween,
The wealth of their reaching tendrils
    Twined over the gulf between;
When love, to our crowded school-room,
    A bower from Eden brought,
Where we, as two hermits living,
    Did feed on each other's thought.

Her clear eyes became her childhood,
    Mine had shed womanly tears;
E'en then had grief made me older
    Than since she has grown from years.
Yet Friendship is so transforming,
    That few could ever divine
If the grief or the gushing laughter
    Was most of it hers or mine.

That time, how it comes before me!
    The lessons our love made light—
The seat in the large old garden—
    The walk on the summer night.
The game, the song, and the reading
    One page, till the twilight fell.
Ah! then we but laughed when the shadow
    Came o'er what we loved so well.

And oh! how my heart, whenever
    Hers was the triumph and prize,
Danced to the tune of her praises,
    Or glowed to her lighting eyes!
And her warm friendship not only
    In me could no fault espy,
But exacted from those who loved not
    That charm of the loving eye.

Alas! for the pleasant visions
    With the dear school-days that fled;
For she was to be a lady,
    And I was to earn my bread.
They loosed, as a tie degrading,
    The bond which our childhood wove,
And fashion too soon froze over
    The streams of that early love.

As seems the moon, at its rising,
    To hang in some lowly tree
O'erlaying its leaves with silver—
    Her love was that moon to me.
But, when she climbeth the heavens,
    The tree is in shade alone;
Alas! from the life it brightened
    E'en so hath my moonlight gone.

I've stood in the darkened doorway
    While she passed in to the ball.
My beauty! I longed to see her
    The pride and the queen of all;
And heard how her friends could envy,
    And wished I might but command
A moment of rank, to give her
    One pressure from one true hand.

They said she was sick. So often
    We had nursed each other of yore,
That, spite of the formal message,
    And spite of the closing door,
I lingered, expecting vainly;
    "Some touch of old fondness, now,
May wish for the hand familiar
    To rest on the aching brow."

She was wooed, and by one above her—
    A noble of wealth and fame;
I was glad, for her sake, his fondness
    Could stoop, and not call it shame.
To look on her wedding only
    I put my mourning away;
I would not that aught too sombre
    Should cross her that happy day.

And so she is gone; but no one
    Her place in my heart can fill;
It is the heart's darkened chamber,
    The dead friend lying there still.
So I sit in my window lonely,
    And long, as she passes by,
For a turn of the old affection,
    A glance from a softening eye.

And to Heaven I still look forward—
    Heaven, where the lost are found;
Where the shackles of earthly grandeur
    Fall off on the holy ground;
Where the spirit at last enfranchised
    May smile at its broken chain;
Where love is intense as holy—
    To give me my friend again.

MILTON'S GOLDEN LANE.

AN old Lincolnshire clergyman, who used
to visit Milton, has preserved a pleasing
picture of the blind poet sitting in the
summer evening to enjoy the fresh air at the
door of his house near Bunhill Fields, "where
he would sometimes receive the visits of
people of quality or distinguished parts." At
that time the Artillery Ground was not shut
in with houses. There were the grounds next
to it planted by the City with shady walks
for the recreation of the citizens. There
were gardens and a windmill or two.
Bunhill Fields were fields then; so were
Spitalfields; so were Moorfields; so were Spafields.