kindle momentarily, which was the object that had caught Tier's eye. No doubt any longer remained of their having found the very place where the mate had cooked his supper, and lighted his beacon, though he himself was not near it. Around these embers were all the signs of Mulford's having made the meal, of which Jack had seen the preparations. A portion of the turtle, much the greater part of it, indeed, lay in its shell; and piles of wood and sea-weed, both dry, had been placed at hand, ready for use. A ship's topgallant-yard, with most of its ropes attached, lay with a charred end near the fire, or where the fire had been, the wood having burned until the flames went out for want of contact with other fuel. There were many pieces of boards of pitch-pine in the adjacent heap, and two or three beautiful plants of the same wood, entire. In short, from the character and quantity of the materials of this nature that had thus been heaped together, Jack gave it as his opinion that some vessel, freighted with lumber, had been wrecked to windward, and that the adjacent rocks had been receiving the tribute of her cargo. Wrecks are of very, very frequent occurrence in the Florida Reef; and there are always moments when such gleanings are to be made in some part of it or other.

"I see no better way to give a call to the mate, Miss Rose, than to throw some of this dry weed, and some of this lumber on the fire," said Jack, after he had rummaged about the place sufficiently to be. come master of its condition. "There is plenty of ammunition, and here goes for a broadside."

Jack had no great difficulty in effecting his object. In a few minutes he succeeded in obtaining a flame, and then he fed it with such fragments of the brands and boards as were best adapted to his purpose. The flames extended gradually, and by the time that Tier had dragged the topgallant-yard over the pile, and placed several planks on their edges, alongside of it, the whole was ready to burst into a blaze. The light was shed athwart the rock for a long distance, and the whole place, which was lately so gloomy and obscure, now became gay, under the bright radiance of a blazing fire.

There is a beacon-light that might almost be seen on board!" said Jack, exulting in his success. "If the mate is anywhere in this latitude, he will soon turn up."

"I see nothing of him," answered Rose, in a melancholy voice. "Surely, surely, Jack, he cannot have left the rock just as we have come to rescue him."

Rose and her companion had turned their faces from the fire to look in an opposite direction in quest of him they sought. Unseen by them, a human form advanced swiftly toward the fire, from a point on its other side. It advanced nearer, then hesitated, afterwards rushed forward with a tread that caused the two to turn; and at the next moment, Rose was clasped to the heart of Mulford.

THE OLD ARM CHAIR.

BY ALFRED CROWQUILL.

"My worthy companions," said an old straight-backed arm-chair, which stood close at my elbow, and, I confess, rather startled me by the suddenness of its address,-"My good friends, the respectable weapon that spoke last, I own, has amused me, as I dare say he has you all, by his deeds of battle, love, and retribution; but still he has been doomed, like many another noisy fellow, to become the tool of others, and to carry death wherever he was used.

I

"Now my fate has been far different, and I consider more to be envied, for it has been to carry nothing but life-and such life! -the beautiful, the young, the beloved. But of that more anon. will begin from the beginning, that you may know what style of thing addresses you.

Know, then, that I am a descendant of a noble oak that once spread its gigantic arms and reared its kingly head over an immense space of earth, and far above all other less aristocratic trees in its neighbourhood. We bore on our arms the acorn, to show that we were truly part, parcel, and branches of the great stem or progenitor, whose first taking possession of the land which he there occupied, was beyond the memory of man; consequently our respectability was undoubted.

As centuries rolled on, our parent stem, although he supplied us liberally with leaves, began to show symptoms of decay. Our strong attachment to him made us tremble for ourselves as well as for him; for, if he were to fall, heaven only knew what would become of the numerous branches of the noble family, then all perfectly dependent on him for support. The vigour daily left his gigantic trunk, and his moans sometimes were very unpleasant to listen to; he tottered very much when there was anything of a storm, for his feet were very much swollen and distorted. From his high connexions we called it gout, but gout or no gout it materially aided in his rapid decay; and one stormy night (I shall never forget it), the wind howled around us, the lightning flashed, the thunder rolled, and, in fact, all the elements seemed combined for the destruction of the family. In the midst of the deafening hubbub a crash-oh, horrible!-found us all struggling in one gigantic ruin. Fallen! fallen! fallen! The fall of the great brings the self-samé tribe of the ungrateful, be the fallen men or trees. The next morning at daylight swarms of despoilers, men that we had sheltered from the storm, women and children that we had shaded from the noonday sun, all came bent upon our destruction. Need I say, that all the branches of our noble family were very much cut up. We were torn from each other, and we never met again. I have heard that some of the biggest of us were sent to sea, whilst others were forced into all manner of situations degrading and incompatible with their birth.

very

But it is of my own fortune I am bound to speak. I was of a respectable size, having been living on my parent for some years, who was very much attached to me, and had always thought me too

green to be sent away into the world. I considered myself ornamental, and therefore was in no hurry to be useful, so stuck to the old gentleman, with the other equally lazy branches; and I have heard it said that our continual drag upon him brought him and ourselves to a premature ruin. But this I look upon as merely the censoriousness of an ill-judging world, and treat it with the contempt it deserves.

I was dragged away through the dust and the mire to an obscure shed, where some low-born ruffians set upon me and stripped me of my clothing. There I lay, naked and helpless, pondering upon what would be my future fate, since it appeared to begin so scurvily.

I was left there for some length of time, when one morning a quiet old man came and measured me with a rule, and marking me off into quantities, soon set to work to divide and shave me in the most brutal manner.

After tortures innumerable I found myself in my present shape, and all my clothes in their newest gloss. I confess to you that I felt proud. I rested my arms upon my knees, and stretching out my four legs, looked down with considerable complacency upon the rich velvet apron that covered my lap.

I was conveyed with much care, and placed in a splendid old chamber, the like of which I had never beheld before. It was full of wonders to my rustic and unworldly eyes; for, though of high birth, my father being called the monarch of the wood, he held his court in the open air, which gave me little knowledge of civilised life. But I believe that that rank is equal to any. I think we are also called "lords of the soil," which we undeniably were, for we struck out right and left to grasp as much as we could, and used up a great portion of the aforesaid soil belonging to other trees, which was really necessary to support the many branches belonging to so

noble a stem.

In my new form I was called a chair: there were a great many so called in the room: they looked very dark at me, for I suppose I was considered a parvenu; but I little heeded them, for my attention was attracted to a beautiful child, who, at that moment, entered the magnificent chamber. Her fair locks flew wildly about her angelic face, and with a light and airy motion she sprang towards She stood and gazed upon me with childish delight, admiring my graceful form; I really felt as if my velvet blushed a deeper crimson beneath her dove-like eyes.

me.

I had a noble heart of oak, and I felt it bound as it were to the fair child a moment more-guess my confusion-envy me my delight! she sprang into my extended arms, and I held in a close embrace the beautiful child, whose life will form the subject of my recital; and although the facts may be wanting in interest to you, to me they are hallowed by a sweet remembrance of one of earth's fairest creatures. Heaven knows I am not given to sentimentalise, nor do I intend to harrow your feelings by scenes of bloodshed or hairbreadth escapes; it is in verity a simplicity, the very sweet

ness of which makes to me its best sentiment.

The girl that I held in my arms was about thirteen years of age, "fair and beautiful to look upon," the only child of the owner of the magnificent domain in which I had become a retainer.

He was a stern proud man, whose early life had been passed in heartburnings and neglect, consequent upon his position of younger brother. Of an ambitious and fiery temperament, he, from his early childhood, had fretted under the every day occurrence of seeing his elder brother, the rising sun, claim from all classes the incense paid to his position. Envy had thus early entered a heart which otherwise would have been noble and good, turning all his better feelings to gall and bitterness.

When manhood put the heir into full possession of his envied rights, he married, and was blessed with a family, entirely crushing the hopes of his younger brother as to any chance of succession.

He soon after married an amiable lady, to whom he had been for some time contracted, and as years wore on, he saw his own child mingle with the fair promising blossoms of his brother; but he experienced a pang as he felt she was only the daughter of a younger brother.

His brother's eldest son, a fine boy of about seven years of age, was the constant playfellow and chevalier to his child, showing that strong predilection for her that roused the hopes again in his embittered heart. It might be that they would grow up in love together, and the inheritance be shared in by himself through the marriage of his child. Even distant as this vision was, it still gave a balm to the rankling spirit that possessed him.

Time had rolled on, when some estates, inherited through a distant relation, called for the presence of the lord of the manor to superintend the arrangement. Finding that he must be absent from home for some months, as the estates were in Ireland, he resolved to take his family with him, leaving his brother in possession; for travelling in those days was not a thing so easily done as I am informed it is in the present.

They parted with many mutual expressions of affection, but they met no more! The vessel in which they had embarked foundered on the dangerous coast to which they were bound, and all perished. The younger brother became the lord!

What whisperings from his heart disturbed the triumph of his hopes. How he blushed at the ambition that stopped the springs of sorrow, which ought to have gushed forth for his poor brother's sake. He became the unhappy possessor of all that had ever gilded and given enchantment to his day-dreams, for his heart told him the price at which it had been bought.

These combating feelings turned him into a stern and misanthropic man; his only pleasure being to return threefold the former neglect of his present parasites; but he was only revenging himself upon himself.

He had no son to carry down the honours of the house. The child he loved so fondly could only be the means of taking those splendid domains to aggrandize another name. She had grown into a beautiful girl of fifteen, when her father was startled by a letter, stating that a youth was then in Ireland, who, from all that could be gathered, was supposed to be son of his lost brother. He trembled ! Was the staff to be snatched from his hand, and he again thrust back into his former position? The thought was annihilating he was almost frenzied. He read again and again the startling missive. The boy, it had stated, had been seized by wreckers, who, fearing

they might be deprived of their plunder, had carried off the childthe only soul living-and after some time, finding him a burthen, had left him at a convent door, where the charity of the monks had sheltered him. They, pleased with his manners, had instructed him, and kept him amongst them for some three or four years. Fragments of recollection ever and anon came over his mind, which he communicated to the kind fathers. The wreck was an occurrence well remembered, and it was resolved that he should be taken to the spot. This being done, the influence of the priests soon wrung from the peasantry many relics of the wreck, among which was a miniature of his father. This led on to a train which after much painful search ended in the discovery of his relations, and the despatching of the letter which so disturbed his uncle.

How different were the feelings of the fair girl whose splendid inheritance was jeopardized by the re-appearance of her cousin! Joy bounded in her heart, and she thought only of the preservation of one who had been the beloved playfellow of her childhood. She counted the hours that kept him from her embrace. But her unworldly heart was doomed to receive a pang from the mysteriously cold and startling behaviour of her father. The pleasure which she experienced he refused to share in. He spoke of the impostures of the world, and the caution necessary in an affair of such consequence; hinting at its being most probably a fraud by some persons well acquainted with the affairs of the family, but that he would see the youth on his arrival. Nothing of course but the most ample and satisfactory proofs could be expected to be received when it involved a stake of such magnitude.

A shadow fell over her innocent heart when she, for the first time, heard the words of caution and distrust. She felt how sad it would make her if her true dear cousin was, by overweening caution, kept back from the door of his paternal mansion, and those who ought to welcome him with open arms received him only with closed hearts.

Through all these misgivings, she felt that she could not be deceived; that no pretender could be like her noble little cousin and playmate. She almost forgot, in the enthusiasm of her warm heart, that the boy must now be a youth fast approaching manhood, and that she was merging from the confines of girlhood into the full bloom of early womanhood.

Her mind was continually agitated by the enacting again and again the anxiously expected meeting. Her spirits became depressed, and she avoided the stern face of her father, which put to flight all her enchanting day-dreams.

Her father commenced proceedings as if to meet an enemy. He invited the counsel of men learned in the law, that no slur should for a moment rest on his character, and that every appearance of justice should be rendered to the expected claimant; but he inwardly felt how difficult it would be for a friendless youth, after the lapse of years-though few, to establish his identity, and his claim to a property of so much consequence, since the principal evidence would be his own vague recollections, and the connecting testimony of men of known disreputable character, at the very point at which it was most vital to have undoubted correctness; as the reverend men who had so kindly sheltered and instructed him knew nothing but what was afforded by the child's own reminiscences.