to danger. Put your trust in Heaven, and hope for the best, my dearest child. It is clear captain Plunket has not, as it was said, been desperately wounded, or we should have met him on his return: quiet then your fears; such accounts are always exaggerated."

"It was better that he were, so the wound would not prove mortal," returned Geraldine; "for in that case he would be safely lodged in Brussels, and not exposed to the conflict of this day, which must be dreadful."

"And are you, Geraldine," demanded Fanny, "so great an enemy to the ho nourable fame of our dear Charles, as to wish him absent from this day's engage ment? I love him as the tenderest mother would love a favourite son; but I love still more his glory, and care not what he may suffer, provided he survive this contest. My heart tells me he shall survive it: how will we then regard him with increased affection for the dangers he shall have encountered,

countered, and exult in the wounds, which shall remain as marks of his glory!"

"How willing would I be, dear Fanny," exclaimed Geraldine, all pale and shuddering, "to wave for poor Charles such dangerous glory!"

Another loud volley of cannon now streaked the heavy clouds with sudden and transient flame, and shook with awful and tremendous crash the firmament. Fanny's heroism took instant flight; she became suddenly pale as the trembling Geraldine, whom she pressed still closer to her breast, while she poured out to Heaven a fervent prayer for Plunket's safety. Recovering, however, after the first shock of the moment, the fortitude so natural to her, she exhorted Geraldine to patience."The cavalry, you see, are not yet engaged; and though they were, some good angel shall protect our Charles, We can do no more than offer up to Heaven our prayers for his preservation."

They then proffered to the God of Hosts

the glowing incense of a prayer, of such mighty fervour and devotion, that their very hearts went with it in trembling supplication.

The roar of cannon now ceasing, from frequent repetition, to produce their first great terror, Mrs. Blandford looked out; black volumes of smoke, awfully rolling in successive masses, enveloped the darkened sky, and rendered all confusion and chaos. She pointed out the awful spectacle to Fanny, so like in appearance the original disorder from whence the Omnipotent Word first drew creation. They gazed in silent wonder; a solemn dread took entire possession of their souls, and held every faculty bound up in terrific suspension; yet even while they thus regarded this indistinct mass, instantaneous almost as the separation of waters at the first formation of the world, the smoke, in thinner and more diffusive volumes, rolled widely afar off-the darkened atmosphere brightens-the view be

comes

comes suddenly clear, and discovers to the anxious observer the well-ordered ranks; but, alas! how sadly thinned by the late destructive fire! To what an inconceivable degree of perfection has the hero man brought the science of destruction! scarce are these chasms perceptible, when by a sudden movement they close their files, form anew, and again all appears in the same admirable order. But while the daring and magnanimous spirit, elevated with admiration, and inspired by a love of glory, views with an agreeable surprise this sudden manœuvre, and the daring front which these brave fellows oppose to the enemy's encounter, pitying humanity, with eyes bent to the earth in compassionate sympathy, only looks to the fallen, and thinks with horror on the destruction of the human species, many of whom (while others have already passed the boundary of life), here prostrate, and perhaps trampled on by their fellow-soldiers,

groan out their breath in excruciating

agony.

It was, however, only when our fair heroines saw the light troops, unable to resist the enemy's horse, and not supported by the cavalry of their allies, give way, that a mortal dread took entire possession of their souls, and their feelings were wrought up to inexpressible anguish. Unable to support this dreadful sight, and think on what might be to their friends the immediate consequence, they embraced each other in sorrow doubly dear; and without venturing by words to declare their mutual fears, poured out in groans, more expressive still, the dread dismay which shook their terror-stricken hearts almost to dissolution.

Meantime the chaise, nearly under the enemy's fire, drove furiously back to some distance, and to where the thick covert of the wood interrupted their view entirely; but finding suspense in this situation less endurable