a

more composed, he threw himself Nevertheless, the slumber of the upon his bed, and tried, but in vain, invalid was long and tranquil. The to sleep. After some time he rose, physician arrived: he pronounced and dressing himself, proceeded to that the crisis of the disorder was the apartment of his nephew. He approaching, and from the tranquil found the old nurse in tears. "All appearance of the patient, he au islover," said she to him softly.-gured a favourable one. He was "O heaven! is he then dead?"-right: Frederic slept for more than "No, he still lives; but-"-" But twelve hours; he awoke free from what?!" His last moments are fever; and the physician, who, at the drawing on." The baron fell on his baron's desire, had not quitted his knees by the side of the bed; he bed-side, declared, that with proper scarcely dared to look upon his care his recovery was almost cernephew: what then was his asto-tain. The nurse, however, 'shook nishment and joy to find him in a soft and tranquil sleep? "Wretch," said he to the nurse, "why would you crush the little hope that still remains to me?"-"Hope! there is none."—"And why?"-" He has received his last warning; and, poor soul, he knows it too, for I distinctly heard him say, 'I come!'"

her head in dissent; and the baron, who hardly dared as yet to give himself up to hope, could not help repeating to himself, for at least the fiftieth time, "Was it a ghost?"

And as our readers may probably say so too, it is time to let them into the secret. The next-door neigh-' bour of Madame de Chauvelin was a widow with a charming daughter.

At this moment Mad. de Chauvelin entered the room, and her interro-The families were not acquainted; gatories drew from the old woman an account of her having seen a female figure, robed in white, bending over the invalid. Whether the spectre had spoken the nurse could not say, but she distinctly heard Frederic exclaim, "I come!" What followed she knew not; for, with a sudden impulse of terror, she threw herself by the side of the bed and hid her face in it, and when she ventured to look up the figure had disappeared.

Madame de Chauvelin treated this story as the mere effect of a disor dered imagination. The baron would have gladly thought the same, but he could not forget the figure that he had himself seen; and though not much tinctured with superstition, he found that the last moments of his nephew were indeed drawing nigh.

but as the gardens joined, our young German was not long in introducing himself to the young lady, whom he saw almost every day in the garden. Her mother was then from home, and she was left under the care of an old aunt, who rarely stirred from the house, and as the habits of Madame de Chauvelin were also very sedentary, the young people had consequently many opportunities of meeting unobserved. They talked not of love, however, though they both felt it, till one morning that Frederic surprised his mistress in tears, and learned that they were caused by the expected arrival of a suitor whom Adelaide had never seen, but for whom, nevertheless, her mother informed her that her hand was destined. We may believe that this intelligence unsealed the lips of

"

Frederic; but he pleaded in vain. Adelaide did not attempt to deny that she loved him, but she regarded her passion as a crime against the duty which she owed to her mother, and she avowed her determination to conquer it.

"You avow then, that you are determined to forget me, and to marry another!" cried the distracted Frederic. Adelaide's tears flowed fast, but she only replied, in a voice suffocated by sobs, "I must do my duty." Frederic quitted her, as he believed, in anger. The following morning she was not in the garden; day after day passed, she did not appear. He found means to get a letter conveyed to her; it was returned unopened. The mother and the lover arrived; and Frederic, believing his fate to be sealed, gave himself up to a despair which soon threatened the most fatal consequences.

Meanwhile, the tender and duteous Adelaide suffered no less than her lover; it was in vain she strove to reconcile herself to the choice of her mother. The form of Frederic was for ever before her eyes; but her sense of duty was too strong to permit her to relax in her rigour, till she found that the effects of it were such as to endanger her lover's life. Then, indeed, she bitterly regretted her severity, and internally vowed to live and die for him alone. But how was she to convey to him this resolution? She dared not apprise her mother of her sentiments; she had no confidant, no friend upon whom she could rely to reveal them to her lover, and to procure access to him herself was impossible. In this dilemma a plan occurred to her, which nothing but the force of love could have enabled her to execute.

Some time before her mother had occupied the house in which Madame de Chauvelin then lived, and Adelaide had accidently discovered a secret door which opened from the baron's chamber into that in which she herself slept. At the end of the baron's apartment a recess had been formed in the wall, capable of concealing several persons; a sliding pannel in the baron's room opened into this recess, and another from the recess gave admission to the chamber of Frederic. Before the baron came, his chamber had been untenanted, and Adelaide conceived that she would have nothing to dread in passing through it to the recess which opened into Frederic's apartment. She had already entered the baron's chamber before she was aware of her mistake, but his stillness made her conclude that he was asleep; and while he hesitated about following her, she had gained the recess unobstructed. There she concealed herself till she found that all was quiet, when she ventured into the chamber of her lover, whose bed happened to be close to the door which gave her admission. Oh! how secret and unexpected a sight for poor Frederic! no wonder that he could not believe his senses; no wonder that in his first emotions he conceived it to be the disembodied spirit of his beautiful mistress, and that he exclaimed, as the nurse || had truly reported, "I come!" But a few words from his Adelaide convinced him that she came not to summon him to another world, but to bid him live for her; and lest the scene should appear to him in after hours to have sprung only from a disordered brain, or an exalted imagination, she left with him a memo

rial of its reality, which he could not || easily be pardoned for thinking that doubt a ring which he well remem- her charms had subdued the sturdy bered to have seen her wear. The veteran; but too politic to betray sight of this upon his finger, when he what she thought, she asked, in a awoke after his long and tranquil reserved tone, what M. de Waldensleep, assured him that his bliss was heim meant. "Madame, you have real; and in the first moments of his a beautiful daughter, so at least I recovery he was sensible only to the am told, and I can well believe it, delightful thought, that Adelaide had now that I have seen you. I have a vowed to live for him and him alone. nephew, young, handsome, in short, 2But doubts and anxieties soon be- a fit match for her.” Sir, my bentory co daughter is engaged." — " Pardon me, madame, she is not."-" How, sir, do you dispute my word?"

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gan to mingle with the delicious hopes to which this assurance had given rise. One day as the baron sat by his bed-side, he took notice" Not at all; but I beg leave to convince you that you are mistaken." "Mistaken!"-"Yes, for the intended marriage is not practicable."

"And why?"-" Because my nephew adores your daughter, she loves him: he has a tolerable fortune of his own, I have one still better to give him; and, as I am determined that this match shall take place, I tell you frankly, that you will risk three lives if you strive to prevent it; for your intended son-in-law must measure swords with me, as well as with my nephew, before he robs my boy of the chosen of his heart."

that his countenance changed sevePaltin ral times. "Frederic," said he, "you are in pain."-"Alas! yes."-"Where, my child?"-" O my dear uncle, if I dared to tell you!"-" Dared to "tell me! What, you whom I love as my own soul, you to have a secret from me, and this secret perhaps the cause of your illness?"-" My dear uncle, you shall know all. I love a charming girl."-" Very well, there is no harm in that."-"She loves me also."- "So much the better, you shall be married directly."-" But her mother means to give her to another, who is richer than I am, and I fear"-"Fear nothing; only tell me her name." "Madame de Sancerre, our next-door neighbour." The baron staid to hear no more: in ten minutes he was in the saloon of Madame de San-weight. A little conversation with M. cerre, whom he found in no very de Waldenheim convinced her, that placid humour, for she had just been he was ready to make any pecuniary urging her daughter in vain to fix a sacrifice for his nephew's happiness; day for her marriage. and she took care to propose very "Madame," said Waldenheim, ap-hard conditions, to which he acceded proaching her, "I am come to ask my life at your hands." Madame de Sancerre, mistaking the nature of this address, blushed and drew up. *She was still a fine woman, and might

Madame de Sancerre was a humane woman, she hated bloodshed, and had besides no aversion to money: the words "he has a tolerable fortune of his own, and I have one still better to give him," had their

with a readiness that settled the matter at once. The lovers were soon united, and they made it a principal part of their happiness to form that of the generous benefactor who had

procured it for them. Frederic was || cloud their happiness by introducing superstitious fears into their minds! The thing is therefore to this hour unaccounted for, it still forms the occasional subject of the baron's rus minations, and sometimes, when he finds himself unable to sleep, he looks round his chamber (where he has ever since, contrary to his usual custom, burned a light,) with a sort of anxious curiosity, saying to him!

even more submissive and attentive to his wishes than he had been before his marriage; and from Adelaide he experienced the duty and affection of a daughter, though she could never prevail upon herself to reveal the secret of her appearance in his chamber; and he, on his part, as carefully kept the knowledge of the supposed apparition from his nephew and niece, lest he should || self," After all, was it a ghost?"uo

He passed three months attending the field Negroes, without any alleviation of his despondency, excepting a ray of self-complacency afforded by an exercise of humanity to the beings so entirely at his mercy; and even this was mixed with inquietude, as the overseer, a turbulent despotic clown, blamed his lenity for every error committed by the slaves. He was unhappy; his selfrespect and all finer feelings were impaired: yet his soul would have

within the space of twelve months, he became familiarized.

A YOUNG gentleman of Ireland having squandered a good estate, escaped from his creditors on board of a vessel bound for the West Indies. Unacquainted with any condition except the gay and the dissipated, he entertained sanguine hopes that a relation in Jamaica would soon put him in the way of retrieving his fortune; but he was too late convinced of his own incapacity to earn what He deemed a tolerable livelihood. He could not undertake the profession either of a lawyer, physician, or sur-revolted at the turpitude to which, geon; and though his friend might have procured for him a clerical living, he had no education suitable for a divine, and he reflected in bit terness upon his negligence at school and at college. He could not even write a legible hand; his knowledge of arithmetic was superficial, and of book-keeping he was quite ignorant. Of what use to him were now his elegant dancing; his fine performance on the violin, flute, and clarionet; his graceful manners and high fashion? These accomplishments served but to unfit him for the drudgery of a bookkeeper; yet to that toil and humiliation he must submit, or sink into utter destitution.

A few steps in folly may lead to crimes. Such were the consequences to Mr. Rodnam; and, on the other hand, one great effort in returning to the path of honour extricated him from profound degra dation. Sunday was the only time he could obtain any relaxation from his field duties, including the charge of giving out provisions for the slaves, which he was likewise obliged to attend to at certain daily periods. Sunday he would gladly have given to convivial pleasures, if the want of gentlemanly habits in his only associates had not filled him with dis

gust: he therefore strayed alone to the seashore, fixed his eyes upon the great Atlantic Ocean, and thought of dear little Ireland, the scene of youthful joys.

began to learn from the severe lessons of experience. He frankly related his former errors, his present mortifications, and his foreboding of added indignities from the rugged overseer. The stranger bade him take heart; there was good help at hand. He commanded a ship, which lay at a small distance; his barge was in a creek hard by, and would receive his jewel of an Irish lad then, or late in the evening; but it would be wisest to go back to the plantation, take away his things, and come to the easternmost point as the sun went down. A few years in trade to the East Indies would make him richer than any Creole of the West. Mr. Rodnam accepted the proposal, and ratified the agreement by shak

About the end of three months, the overseer rudely reprimanded him for sparing the whip, and made some gross allusion to the silly womanish tenderness of poor gentlemen. Mr. Rodnam's Hibernian spirit flashed out in the most pointed yet indirect ridicule of plebeian brutality. He saw that the overseer appropriated the derision to himself, and was aware that he could and would avenge it. Stung by wounded pride, and not without strong presentiments of more insufferable insult, he wandered to hisaccustomed solitude. Transported by vehement emotion, he some-ing hands with Captain Monaghan. times wrung his hands, beat his forehead, or sat wofully ruminating upon the misery of a civilized mortal, removed from all with whom he could assimilate, and subject to the tyranny of a savage. In these agonies,|| or melancholy reveries, time imperceptibly elapsed; he had walked along the beach unheeding how far, and when he looked at his watch, the last relic of better days, he saw that his time had been outstaid by two hours. He reprobated his own imprudence in giving the overseer such advantage against him; and while occupied by this idea, a stout man, with a weather-beaten visage, accosted him in a high Irish accent with much kindly warmth, expressing his sorrow to observe a fine young gentleman so troubled in mind. The voice of a countryman, the effusions, of sympathy so long unheard, dismissed from the heart of Rodnam the little caution which he Vol. IV, No. XX.

On returning to the plantation, he had the satisfaction of hearing that the overseer had been absent all day, and was not expected till very late: he began to hesitate upon throwing himself entirely under the power of a stranger; but recollecting his unconditional engagement, he determined not to break it. He was taken on board, and with horror discovered that he was involved with pirates; but each had a story to tell in palliation of his opposition to the laws that formerly aggrieved him in partiality to the powerful and wealthy. Rodnam regarded their offences as the effects of just resentment; and living in luxury and ease, he falsely concluded, that the pirates were really better men than the oppressors of the sable race, who never shared with him their abundant gratifications. To divert the crew with instrumental music and singing, to go on shore as spokesman, for which

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