behind books on the shelves, folds in curtains,
&c. ; and a friend one day, on putting on a
jacket which had lain on the chair in his
room for a day or two, found one of their
nests in the sleeve.

TOO LATE!

"O! mother, the wind blows chill o'er the moor,
   The sleet drives sharp 'gainst the pane,
The blast, like a guest, at the shaken door,
   Comes knocking again and again.

O! mother, there's one on the bleak, bare wold,
   So weary, and worn, and thin.
Wand'ring alone in the bitter cold:
   O! mother, you'll let her in?
For the winter even is dark and drear,
   While our home fire-side is bright;
Its glow shines out on the glassy mere,
   Like a star through the stormy night.
O! mother, that woman is wan and faint,
   Footsore, and hunger'd, and ill:
Open the door to her piteous plaint,
   She may die on the snow-wreathed hill."

"Put up the bolt on the creaking door,
   The shutter across the pane,
Your sister darkens my hearth no more;
   Nor eats of my bread again."

There presses a face to the streaming glass;
   She can see the light in the room;
She can see her mother's tall shadow pass,
   To the inner chamber's gloom.
As it duskily glows on the panell'd wall,
   The fire looks kind and clear,
And the peering eye that traces it all,
   Grows dim with a burning tear.

The gleam from the midnight mere is gone,
   The face from the window-glass,
And a step drags wearily, wearily on,
   To the edge of the deep morass.
The clouds that, flittering across the moon,
   Make shadowy shapes and strange,
And beckon, and waver, and toss, and croon
   Round the dim and darksome Grange.

*  *  *  *  *

What misty form on the threshold stands,
   Faltering in every gust?
Moaning, and wringing its ghastly hands,
   Leaving no track in the dust?
Coming and going with soundless tread,
   In the gloam across the marsh,
When the moon is up and the world's a-bed,
   And the winds whistle chill and harsh?

In the rusty grate there is not a spark,
   The door from its hinge is gone;
The wainscot is mouldy, and damp, and dark,
   And shatter'd the threshold stone.
The ivy has crept through the broken glass
   And trails on the mossy floor:
Gauntly and ghastly the shadows pass
   In and out at the door.

Who calls, who calls through the frosty nights,
   As the spring-time comes apace?
Who calls, who calls when the summer lights
   On meadow, and wold, and chace?

Who calls, who calls through the autumn drear,
   When the dusk-brown leaves grow thin?
Who calls with a voice of grief and fear,
   " O mother! pray let me in!"

It comes from the marsh like a wailing breeze,
   With a shriek, a sob, a moan;
Then dies away midst the writhing trees,
   With a curse in its fainting tone.
"O mother! you'll hear that heart-break cry
   When you come to Heaven's gate,
And angel-ears are closed to your sigh
   ' Too late, too late, too late! '"

NEMESIS.

IN FOUR CHAPTERS. CHAPTER THE FIRST.

MY father was a gentleman of high
respectability, whose family had been seated
for many generations near a town that I will
call Battenham in North Devon. Coming early
into his patrimony, he nevertheless lived a very
retired life for one who had a stake in the
county, to the upholding or preservation of
which, he was well fitted. His self-seclusion,
was not the effect of misanthropy, or a refuge
for pride; for, with his equals, he
maintained the most friendly relations, and he
was deservedly beloved by his poorer
neighbours and dependents. But he was a man
whose delicacy of health was just so much of
a reality, as sufficed to plead apology for
declining to enter into society, and as
served for an excuse to himself for shutting
himself in his library; where, year by year,
the habit of study grew stronger upon him,
while his plea to the world for keeping out of
it, likewise became more valid.

Summoned on urgent business to London,
where he tarried, or was detained, several
months, the good folks of Battenham and the
country around had something to talk about
when it was made known to them that Squire
Westwood had, on his return, brought home
a wife with him. Their surprise, had he
witnessed it, and their comments, if he had
overheard them, would have recalled his own
state of feeling immediately after he had
proposed and been accepted.

The truth is, the young lady, recently
become his wife, was the daughter of an old
friend, after whom, during his stay in London,
my father had instituted anxious inquiries,
and whom he had at last discovered in one of
the suburbs dying of a broken heart, the
consequence of a bankruptcy. The poor
gentleman, having made his peace with God,
had now but one earthly solicitude to disturb
his few remaining days—the future of his
only child. This was apparent in every look
he cast upon her, in the tone of every word
he addressed to her. My father, of the
mature age of forty-five, would willingly
have instituted himself the girl's guardian.
It was his first impulse to offer her the
protection of his home until some situation,
such as a lady might accept, should pre-