—he had only taken up a fragment of dried
wood!

Feeling shame at such self-deception as
this, he was about to throw the wood from
him before he re-entered the place, when
another idea occurred to him. Though it was
dimly lighted through one or two chinks in
the stones, the far part of the interior of the
cavity was still too dusky to admit of perfect
examination by the eye, even on a bright
sunshiny morning. Observing this, he took out
the tinder box and matches, which—like the
other inhabitants of the district—he always
carried about with him for the purpose of
lighting his pipe, determining to use the
piece of wood as a torch which might illuminate
the darkest corner of the place when he
next entered it. Fortunately, the wood had
remained so long and had been preserved so
dry in its sheltered position, that it caught
fire almost as easily as a piece of paper. The
moment it was fairly aflame Gabriel went into
the cavity—penetrating at once, this time, to
its farthest extremity.

He remained among the stones long enough
for the wood to burn down nearly to his hand.
When he came out, and flung the burning
fragment from him, his face was flushed
deeply, his eyes sparkled. He leapt carelessly
on to the heath, over the bushes through
which he had threaded his way so warily but
a few minutes before, exclaiming, "I may
marry Rose with a clear conscience now—ay,
I am the son of as honest a man as there is
in Brittany!" He had closely examined the
cavity in every corner, and not the slightest
sign that any dead body had ever been laid
there was visible in the hollow place under
The Merchant's Table.

DIRGE.

A FALLEN angel here doth rest:
  Deal gently with her, Memory! lest
In after years thou com'st to know
  God was more merciful than thou!

She cannot feel the timid peeping
Of loving flowers—the small moss creeping
Over her grave—the quiet weeping
             Of saltless dews;
She hears not—she that lies there sleeping,
             Whoe'er accuse!

She hears not how the wild winds crave
  An entrance to her sheltered grave;
Nor heeds how they bewail and moan,
  That one door closed to them alone;

She nothing recks the cold rains' beating,
  The swathèd turf-sod's icy sheeting,
Nor hears, nor answers she the greeting
            Of such cold friends!
Nor more, of summer suns unweeting,
            To them attends.

Alas! no season now has power
  To charm her for one little hour!
Each change and chance that men oppress
  Pass o'er her now impressionless.

She cannot note the gradual merging
Of Night in Day; the Days' quick urging
To longer Weeks; the Weeks' converging
         In Months—Months, Years!
On Time's wide sea for ever surging,
               Till Heaven nears.

The light is parted from her eye,
  The moisture on her lips is dry;
No smile can part them now; no glow
  Ever again those cheeks can know.

Harsh world! oh, then, be not thou slow'r
The ugly Past to bury o'er!
Time yet may have some sweets in store
               For our poor sister;
Life cast her off; that sell-same hour
       Death took, and kissed her!

SEVENTY-EIGHT YEARS AGO.

THE American loyalist of seventy-eight
eight years ago, setting out from London in
search of a temporary abiding-place or home
among the country towns of England, had not
proposed to himself an easy task. But he
was bent on going through with his enterprise.
Reduced from affluence to the practice
of a strict economy, he yet imagined that not
a few of the social enjoyments of London,
without their extravagant cost, might be
obtainable in one of our large provincial
cities. He thought thus to sweeten that
bread of exile which Dante tells us must be
always bitter bread; and cheerfully enough,
therefore, at four o'clock on a July morning
of 1776, took his seat in the early and fast
coach for Salisbury, which, after performing
the gallant feat of eighty-three miles in fifteen
hours, deposited him at the Red Lion in the
ancient city at seven o'clock on that July
evening.

Dear to every American loyalist in those
days had been the old country, and its Church
and State; and Mr. Curwen was no exception
to the rule. But it is a piece of truth,
as well as a line of poetry, that distance lends
enchantment to the view; and it happened,
on the occasion of this journey to Salisbury,
that the ex-Admiralty Judge of New
England got so near a view of two very remarkable
types or examples of the Church and
State of Old England as then existing, that
their enchantment passed clean out of them,
then and there. He strolled into the fine old
cathedral the morning after his arrival, and
heard the dean, with five or six surpliced
followers and eight singing boys, mumbling
the service to a congregation of "eight as
miserable looking wretches as ever entered
the doors of a hospital." Yet, wretched as
this audience was, it had been hired to attend;
and on closer examination of the condition of
the cathedral itself, was found not at all out
of harmony with it. The walls seemed
mouldering, the ceiling rotting with centuries
of decay, the seats and woodwork everywhere
tumbling down. Mr. Curwen bethought him of
the English Church militant of old; compared