before, when it was time-but why should I reproach you? Go, George, I forgive you, and may God bless you!" As she spoke, a seaman, whom I had observed watching them at a distance, and who had evidently been stopped on his errand by the respect any exhibition of deep feeling commands from humanity, and by none held more sacred than the British tar, advanced, and whispered something in the officer's ear. A short embrace, and the lovers had parted. A trembling hand drew again the veil—a convulsive grasp of her companion's arm-the tottering step as she turned to go,―all, all, too plainly told her heart-sickening grief. I did not at the moment follow, but I resolved in my heart to again see them. Pushed on by the crowd, I stopped to view the vessel sail, and as she passed, observed amongst those upon the deck, the young man I had before seen; his eye wandering over the crowd, as grasping a rope he leaned over the bulwarks, proclaimed his disappointment. Strange! how in such a scene as this, each individual of the immense crowd fancies that he alone is visible to his friend from among the thousands that throng around him; and as the vessel nears, his sharp glance detects upon the deck him he is in search of, though all unseen himself. She passes-their eyes meet, the flush of recognition mantles to the cheek and sparkles in the eye, the unheard adieus murmur on the lip, the uplifted arm, undiscernible amid the forest of others raised by the self-same spell, waves impotent in air. She is gone-still, still, afar off, as the vessel grows gradually indistinct, and in the distance lessens to the eye, you behold him still plainly. He signals to you; the farewell breaks again from your lips, the waving arm is again He hears you not, he raised-fool that you are! sees you not; 'tis but a sailor, cold and emotionless, moving in his customary round. Return then to the home he has left-go into the chamber where he is not-gaze upon the seat he has lately occupied, and then, in the bitterness of an overladen heart, do not blush to have wept;-at first, the scalding tears of a wild, a passionate, and an agonizing grief, wherein the hopelessness of despair mingles in your pangs; soon, however, the anguish lessens; the diminished pain of a mellowed and more gentle sorrow follows from exhaustion; to be again, in its turn, replaced by the utter forgetfulness that you have ever so felt. Such is the heart, the uncertain heart of man. I said that I had resolved to trace the two females already mentioned. I did so.Young, pretty, and clever, Mary Elston had by her friends been led into society rather beyond the position, though respectable, of her parents. The result too common-a promised marriage, and a broken vow. The countenance of her family thus lost, the professional calls of her betrayer had deprived her of the only substitute. Her companion, almost a total stranger, and merely known to her as the landlady of the house where they had lodged, had, from an unwillingness to permit her being altogether alone, accompanied her to the shore; in all other respects, on my discovering them, I found that Mary Elston was utterly friendless. My sympathy in her isolated position, together with the noble traits in her character an intimacy gradually disclosed, led me to form the somewhat romantic resolution, in spite of my own complete present dependence upon my father, to rescue her from the dangers likely to beset one in her position. Though for the present utterly at my father's mercy, there was yet, in the profession allotted me, every prospect of future wealth with which to realise the fond visions I had formed for her happiness. Why, then, thought I, if for the present the foundation on which to rear this superstructure be doubtful--why shall I hesitate? Why, for temporary difficulty, shrink from discharging a duty? and because I am comparatively without the power, unless with risk to myself, shall I, by yielding to my present fears, render useless and abortive the future power I may then command? Thus I reasoned; and though all of ruin to myself that my fears then pictured may have been since realised, yet can I not regret the resolution I took. To snatch as a brand from the fire a lovely creature endowed with high qualities, though marked for the world's scorn by the villany of another, seemed to me no question for cold calculation. To rescue from possible degradation here, and eternal ruin hereafter, one, that amid misfortune commanded respect, did not to me, in the youthful wisdom of nineteen, seem to clash with the canons of Christianity. Nor do I, with the matured sense of age, and the soured feelings of a long life, on which the world has never smiled, even now, much envy the polished and refined philosophy of those whose lips would curl with contempt at the mention of such notions. Oh, what was love made for, if 't is not the same I but know that I love thee, whatever thou art.-Moore. Enough, that I so felt, and so I acted. Present embarrassment was of course the consequence, and with that I had to struggle; a long and severe illness, the result of feelings tasked beyond nature's power, was the first additional difficulty to test my constancy. It was to the chamber of sickness, to the bed of suffering, that I felt myself called, before even discharging my mission to M'Cullagh. With a heart filled sufficiently with the cares and anxiety of my own painful position, I proceeded to fulfil my engagement to M'Cullagh-meditating alternately upon the somewhat mysterious nature of the communication I had to make to him, and anon, reflecting on my own affairs, I slowly trudged along, bestowing little attention on the busy scene around me, towards that quarter of the town where M'Cullagh's lodgings were situated, and which had |