Mary's supplications, and who now supported the faint steps of the exhausted Jessie; while the orphan shrunk from the stare of scorn, curiosity, or wonder, which they attracted.

They reached the house at last, and the two girls crept up the dark dirty stair into a low and ill-furnished room ; and there they sat down, and Jessie told her own story from the time of her leaving her place, to the moment when Mary found her. She said she was innocent of the crime for which she had been sent away, and that she firmly believed the lace had been put into her box by one of the other servants, a girl who had since been transported for a theft committed in another family. That fearing the disgrace of a trial, and feeling the impossibility of proving her innocence, she had left her master's house in a state of mind approaching to delirium, and as she wandered on, she came to a bridge, and felt irresistibly prompted to throw herself from it, and so die. That while in the act of jumping from the parapet, she was saved by a young man whom she afterwards discovered to be a surveyor, and who persuaded her to return with him to his mother, promising that no one should ever know where she was, till she herself wished it. That she

remained with his mother for more than two months, and that the young man wished very much to marry her; but that she would neither consent to this, nor to tell her father's name, nor to write home (though often urged to do so by the old woman), till she should stand acquitted of the charge of theft; which event,

knowing her innocence, she thought time might bring about. That when she heard of the transportation of her fellow-servant, she relinquished all hope of ever having her character cleared, and gave herself up to despair. That just about this time, the young man who had treated her so kindly, was killed by the fall of some old houses he was examining, and his aged and feeble parent survived his loss but eight days. That after the death of these persons she had hired this miserable lodging; and having gone in search of employment to a distant part of the town, on her return homewards she had fallen asleep from grief and weariness, and never woke till she was roused by the person Mary had seen holding her, who persisted that she was drunk, and ordered her to get up and go away.

During the whole of the recital, Jessie's voice was almost inarticulate from hysterical weeping; her violence of language, the bitternesss with which she expressed herself against all those connected with her dismissal from service, startled and dismayed the gentle Mary. At first she strenuously refused to return to her father's house, and passionately disclaimed any wish to be received, unless they entirely believed her assertions of innocence. But when the orphan meekly reasoned on her probable fate, when she contrasted the confused shouts, the brawlings, the drunken songs with which from time to time their ears were assailed, with the quiet of their own old home,-when, above all, she described the utter brokenheartedness of the stout farmer, the proud spirit melted, and Jessie consented

to accompany her adopted sister. A letter was written to prepare her father and mother; and late on the evening of the day farmer Somers received the intelligence, the two sisters again walked together through the little lane which led to the farm-house; and in a few minutes more Jessie was folded to her father's heart. Another letter had reached him on that eventful morning;-it was from Jessie's master, containing the confession of her fellow-servant, taken before a magistrate and duly signed; the principal purport was, that the theft had been a concerted plan, both to obtain money and cause Jessie's dismissal, of whom she was very jealous: that she had taken Jessie's bonnet, and procured curls of the description usually worn by the unhappy girl:- and that she had purposely dropt the handkerchief, that no circumstance might be wanting to condemn her.

While these happy tidings were reading, Mary scarcely felt that James's arm was thrown round her while he gazed on Jessie: but she heard and felt his audible amen, when at evening prayer that night, farmer Somers called down a fervent blessing on 66 THE ORPHAN;" and the humbled and saddened Jessie, who became again (and with better cause) the cherished idol of all around her, never forgot the day when Mary sate in that dark and wretched room, earnestly persuading her, in those low musical tones, to return like the prodigal son, like him to be welcomed.

THE ARTIST.

BY WILLIAM KENNEDY.

AND he is gone!—It seems as yesterday
Since on the pleasant hills we roamed at play!
Two striplings, like twin ozier-boughs entwined,
Our flexile figures yielding to the wind,
We pryed into the secrets of the bee-
Sought the mysterious nest in hedge or tree
Scaled the gaunt cliff, or loitered by the brook,
Gleaning strange lore from Nature's wondrous book.

As waxed our boyhood, it rejoiced us more
To thread the wilds when Summer's reign was o'er-
To haunt the ruins of the feudal hold,

And warm our fancies with achievements old:
Blest mates of innocence, how oft the moon
Dissolved our dreamy councils all too soon!
How oft our bosoms rose against the wrong
Which taxed with waywardness our wanderings long→→
How oft for sphere more gentle have we sighed,
Where blameless wishes would not be denied!

Friend of life's spring! the joys I tasted then
Passed with the time, nor gladdened me again :
Doomed to the task, the weary oar I ply,
Content to live-nor less content to die -
Nought now reflects my being's better part
Like the pure waters of thy tranquil heart.

Untaught hard-handed-shrewd-Lorenzo's sire
Cared little for imagination's fire -

The burley wight who fertilized the clod
Appeared to him the noblest work of God.
Three sons, the heirs of his colossal frame,
Maintained the credit of a rustic name;
The fourth-my comrade
Destined parental pleasure to alloy.

was a feeble boy,

A worthy priest there was who marked the youth,
His soul's high promise and transparent truth-
Hailed with perception just and purpose kind,
The early fruitage of his ardent mind,
Read in the boldness of a rude design
Such genius as made Angelo divine;
And, generous, delighted to foretel
His bright career who had begun so well.

Spite of opposing Fortune's hard controul,
The love of beauty filled Lorenzo's soul
The varied hues of ocean, earth, and sky,
Awoke to rapture his discerning eye -

He viewed creation's wonders, great and small, And his fine sense exulted in them all :