open and disinterested kindness. He expressed his thanks very heartily, but declared he was quite ashamed to confess his business in London, and the nature of those night-walks which had excited the attention of the honest tobacconist. By degrees, however, his inquisitive friend got out of him, that he had, in fact, been deeply mortified and disappointed; that he had expected to meet with a very particular person or occurrence on London Bridge; and, in short, that he had undertaken a long, expensive, and laborious journey to London, merely at the instigation of a dream. He suppressed, however, his name and residence, from a vague apprehension that such disclosure might by possibility expose him to ridicule, or to some other unpleasant consequence.

The quaker heard this strange confession with much surprise, and then replied with great solemnity: "It strikes me with astonishment, my good friend, that a man of thy decent and sober appearance should have come a journey of two or three hundred miles on such an errand as this! I thought such vain imaginations and weak superstitions nad long since been eschewed by all men of sense, and abandoned to children and old women. It is deplorable to think that thy parents and instructors did not take care to root out all such idle fancies in early life, and then wisdom might peradventure have come with years and experience. However," continued he, "it does not become me to erect mine horn aloft, and look down upon the weak and ignorant, because my own lot has fallen in better places. If I have been hitherto enabled to turn aside from all such vain devices, is it not because, having been brought up, as it were, at the feet of Gamaliel, I have learnt from the lessons of a wise father the ways of truth and soberness? And yet," added he, smiling at Christopher, "I can assure thee, friend, that if I have constantly kept clear of

all such delusions, it has not been from lack of temptation. I have, all my life long, been a great dreamer; and often my midnight visions have been so express and surprising, that it has required the strong arm of truth and reason to resist their allurements. Even this very last night I was beset with this temptation. I dreamed that an elderly man, in a snuff-brown coat, with a pen stuck behind his ear, came to my bed-side, and told me, that if I went into a back garden, belonging to an ancient castle in Yorkshire, and dug the ground under the stone seat of an old Gothic summer-house, I should find a great treasure. Now," continued he, with a look of conscious superiority, "if I had been so foolish as thou, I might have neglected my business, and set off on a toilsome journey in search of this imaginary treasure." Here Kester Hobson, who had thus far thought the good quaker's harangue rather prosing and tedious, began to prick up his ears, as the ancient poets express it; for he was well aware that there was exactly such an old summer-house as this, in a retired garden, in the grounds of Lounsborough Castle. His countenance betrayed a visible agitation; but fortunately he stood in a dark part of the shop, where the light did not fall upon his face. He could hardly forbear shouting with exultation ; but, by a violent effort, he suppressed his emotion, and replied as indifferently as he could, that it was true he had indeed been guilty of a great weakness, but he hoped he should be wiser for the future.

It is useless to say that Kester treasured up this momentous information carefully in his mind, and soon after took leave of his valuable friend. "We shall soon see," thought he, exultingly, " which of us two is the wiser man in his generation." The next day he took his departure for Yorkshire, and in about a week reached his home in safety. On the very night of his arrival, he dismissed his family to

bed in good time, telling them that he had some accounts to settle, which required him to be alone. When the household was all sunk in repose, he took a spade and a lantern, and repaired in silence to the old summer-house. He removed the stone seat, took up the pavement, and after digging about three feet deep, he felt the spade strike against some hard substance. His nerves were all agitation; but he went on, and soon drew out a large earthen jar, of the capacity of about half a bushel, fastened with a wooden cover. He eagerly broke it open, and found it quite filled with the gold coins of the reign of Elizabeth, James the First, and Charles the First. He instantly conveyed it home, and got it safely locked up in his desk, without the least appearance of interruption.

Kester Hobson's wife was, like himself, famous for prudence and reserve; and to her, therefore, but not to his daughter, he determined to reveal the secret. They used their treasure cautiously and discreetly, so as to avoid particular remark or conjecture; and he often laughed in his sleeve at the good quaker's sage discourse, and airs of lofty superiority. He thought himself dispensed from making any disclosure to his noble master; for, though a man of fair character, and reasonably honest when temptation did not press him too hard, yet on the present occasion he thought all he had got was the fair reward of his own cuteness and perseverance.

THE CORPSE-CANDLE.

THROUGH the midnight gloom did a pale blue light
To the church-yard mirk wing its lonesome flight;
Thrice it floated those old walls round,
Thrice it paused-'till the grave it found.
Over the grass-green sod it glanced,
Over the fresh-turned earth it danced,
Like a torch in the night-breeze quivering-
Never was seen so gay a thing!

Never was seen so merry a sight

As the midnight dance of that pale blue light!

Now what of that pale blue flame dost know?
Canst tell where it comes from, or where it will go?
Is it the soul, released from clay,

Over the earth that takes its way,

And tarries a moment, in mirth and glee,

Where the corpse it hath quitted interred shall be?
Or is it the trick of some fanciful sprite,
That taketh in mortal mischance delight,

And marketh the road the coffin shall go,

And the spot where the dead shall be soon laid low!
Ask him who can answer these questions aright;
I know not the cause of that pale blue light!

MOLLY GRAY, of

MOLLY GRAY.

An American Story.

Toppington, was a very pretty lass, and a very proud one. She was the seventh daughter of Deacon Nehemiah Gray, a moderate farmer, who, to tax his ability to the utmost, could not give his daughters each a setting out exceeding two hundred dollars. Her six sisters had all married respectable farmers and mechanics, and were well to do in the world. But Molly, who was the beauty and pride of the family, resolved to look a little higher than her sisters. She would not take up with the "humdrum fellers" -the farmers and mechanics of Toppington-not she. She wondered that her sisters had no more respect for themselves than to marry such "coares, unmannerly critters." For her part, she meant to have a man that was somebody. Before she was fairly eighteen she began to be wooed. Her beauty, the respectability of the Deacon, the Deacon's wife, and indeed the whole family, early procured her plenty of suitors. But they were not to Miss Molly's taste; and though she felt some little vanity in being wooed, even by farmers and mechanics, she was not to be thus won.

Her first lover was Joshua Ploughshare. He was a sober, industrious, moral young man, of twenty-three, well to live, and resolved on getting a wife. He was quite taken with Molly Gray, insomuch that he never passed her in the street, or saw her at church, but his heart beat as though it would fly out of his jacket.

"She's an all-fired handsome gal, that," said he to himself," and if I could only marry her, I should be the happiest feller in all Toppingtown."

Joshua was so smitten with the Deacon's pretty daughter,