only dwellings of man near: they stood upon a broken rock which overhung the sea. The hope of obtaining succour gave wings to my feet, though, when I attempted to walk, the pain was excessive, for I too was bruised and wounded: but it mattered not; I thought only of Helen, and, guided by the light, made haste towards the cottage, which was distant about one hundred yards.

Misfortune abolishes ceremony; and, perceiving, from the sound of voices, that the inhabitants were yet astir in the house, I raised the latch, unbidden, and entered what seemed to be the cottage of a fisherman. The room, though small, was scrupulously clean, and neatly furnished: a bright fire was blazing on the hearth. The appearance of the place seemed to promise a friendly shelter: not so the countenances of its inhabitants. By the side of the fire sat an old man and woman, decently clad in the provincial dress; the features of both were singularly stern and hard, and they rose not, neither testified surprise at my intrusion. I had therefore to speak in French, as well as I could, and tell them of our calamity. "We are English,” I said

English!" interrupted the austere old man, for the first time breaking silence, and speaking in pure good French. "Wife! do you hear this? Thank God, our prayer is granted, and our vow shall be fulfilled! Go, stranger, and clamour elsewhere: I have no aid for you!"

"But,” cried I, passionately, "I am shipwrecked and wounded, and have lost every thing, and my daughter is dying hard hard by; dying of cold and weariness. Give us shelter and dry clothing; and I promise you an ample reward, so soon as I can send to Marseilles."

"What I will not give I will not sell," replied the old man, in the same cold and unmoved tone. "Go back to your daughter; I have brought you both from the shore,

and given you a light and a garment. What would you have more! Go!"

"But, good heavens! have you no mercy? no human feeling? You, my good woman, may have been a mother yourself. You may-"

and

"Ay,” cried she, bitterly, rising and confronting me face to face; "I have been a mother! Listen to me—I had a daughter. My husband, there, was captain and owner of the fairest ship that sailed out of the port of Marseilles. I sailed with him, and my child, who was then eighteen, fifty times as fair as your pale girl-she was to be married when we returned. Well, our vessel was wrecked on the western coast of your island; the rocks were crowded with people; but they put no boats out nor came to save the poor perishing wretches who shrieked for aid, even in the struggles of death. Of the crew, we three were alone saved, with what treasure we could bear about us; and your people helped us vastly! They rifled us of our money, and tore the rings from the ears and fingers of my Rosalie, and broke open our chests, while my husband and I were too weak and wounded to resist their plunder, and knew not a word of their language to complain. And my Rosalie, they left on the cold wet sand in her swoon-left her for an hour, with the spray dashing over her; and then two rude men brought her rudely into the hut where they had laid us, (believing we were dead,) wounded, and crushed, and pale, and bleeding: yet they searched her for money, and she, old man! she died that night! and they buried her in their church-yard.

"It pleased God, however, that we both recovered, though none cared for us, nor restored us the money or the clothes they had robbed us of. We begged our way through the country, through a land of strangers who hated our nation. Even the very children jeered at us as we

passed them, and the magistrates put us in prisons and stocks. But at last, thank God! we got home; and we bound ourselves with a solemn vow, as your people had dealt with us, so to deal with you, should ever a like chance happen. That vow we have broken already, this night. Here (giving me a bundle from a clothes-press) is clothing and here (handing me, as she spoke, a crust of black bread and a cup of water) is food. Go, old man! and, as you sit by your dying daughter, remember the tale I have told you."

It was in vain to make further entreaty: the inexorable old woman, when she had ceased, returned to her seat; nor could prayer, or the anguish of a distracted father, extort another word from her. It was in the chill sickness of despair that I turned away from the door, which I heard immediately and closely barred behind me; and, with the wretched food and raiment I had received, hastened eagerly to the shed where my beloved child lay.

The churlish aid had been given too late for the feeble spirit had left its clay in my absence; and I sat alone, in my agony, beside her dust, till the morning dawned.

THE CITY OF THE DESERT.

BY DERWENT CONWAY.

ELEVEN days had I trodden these trackless solitudes: eleven times had I seen the sun rise from the vast level that stretched around me. It was now evening, and as the oblique rays shot athwart the desert, I fancied I descried the appearance of columns rising on the far horizon. I strained my aching eye-balls, to pierce as it were, between

the desert and the sky, that I might be assured no noving pillars of sand had been mistaken for the vestiges of human labour; but the appearances continued immovable. This, then, was the City of the Desert; here it was, that on the morning of the twelfth day, as my vision had revealed, I should obtain the promised gift-contentment! A thousand times had I bewailed the shortness of human life; "It is a worthless possession," I have exclaimed, “too brief for enjoyment: oh, that I might live for a thousand years!" “Go,” said the vision: "go to the City of the Desert, and there learn contentment."

As the morning of the twelfth day dawned, it revealed the object of my search. An irregular line of varied elevations, evidently the work of man, shewed, either the existence or the remains of his habitation. As I approached, the line grew into greater distinctness, and soon, the uprisen sun bathed in gold the pinnacles of an hundred temples. I knew not if the City were inhabited; this, my vision had not revealed; and I stopped to listen if any sound of life came over the desert. The profoundest stillness reigned, the City was as silent as the wilderness that surrounded it; and, as I passed within the walls, I believed myself to be the only human being they inclosed. It was a solemn and imposing spectacle. I wandered through long and spacious streets, all silent as the grave: palaces, temples and private dwellings, stood, some as if they were yet the habitations of the living; some crumbling into ruins. Columns, upon which the art of man had been exhausted, lay prostrate, or stood yet erect, though mouldering away, -bright in the rays of the morning sun, that for centuries had risen and set upon their silent beauty. I was suddenly awakened from a deep reverie by the sound of a footstep. An aged man stood within a few paces of me; and, as I involuntarily stepped back, somewhat awed by the presence

of one whose appearance bespoke a nature if not different, yet less evanescent than my own: "Fear nothing," said he, in a tongue that had long ceased to be the language of living lips, "fear nothing; comest thou hither to learn, from one over whose head centuries have passed, the misery of length of years? Thou doest well: follow me, and thou shalt hear of the curse that has rested upon me for a thousand years." I obeyed my conductor, who led me into a garden, where, in the centre, shaded by date trees, stood a fountain, and on the ground, a marble basin, into which the water fell, drop by drop, "See," said he, "there is only one pebble in this basin," and an exulting smile passed over his shrivelled countenance; 66 once there were a thousand, -but nine hundred and ninety-nine are resting on the ground: I have taken one from the heap, each year of the nine hundred and ninety-nine that the curse has endured, that I might know my hour; to night, when the moonbeam shall tip the date tree, I will throw this on the ground also: sit down upon these steps," continued the patriarch, "and listen to the story of my life." I sat down beside the man of a thousand years, as thus he spoke:

"The City which now contains but thee and me, and which has been for a thousand years the dwelling-place of only one, was once the habitation of a million of living men and women. Tens of thousands in lusty manhood, once walked these silent streets; and the light glee of children who lived not to be men, mingled with the noise of the waters that once gushed from this fountain, and with the sounds of happy living creatures that filled the air, or gambolled on the earth. I see it all, but as yesterday. But a curse came upon the City; and the curse has rested upon me. Famine came first; many died,—but they who had bread, gave to them who had none--all, save me, and