reach of the law, or of those cowardly villains who have run away, and left me in the lurch. I'll settle for them, at all events. Your jewels, ma'am, your jewels. »

"Here, here, I said, the keys are in the drawer of the looking-glass. They are principally in a large flat box in the next closet. »

without

I tremblingly obeyed. He dragged me after him ceremony, and soon found what he had demanded. He made a hasty sweep, and was about to retreat, when the sound of carriages was heard in the street.

་

Here they are," he cried, with a desperate oath. «I must chance it through the mews; but nobody is to be left behind to tell tales.

As quick as the word he levelled his pistol at me, and fired, but his aim was unsteady, and the ball passed through my thick hair, in which stuck and smouldered some burning wadding. In an instant he drew another from his waistcoatpocket; but fear, the desperation of the danger, and the chance of coming assistance, gave me more than woman's strength. I closed upon him, and held down his arm with all my might. It was weak, however, even under the circumstances of excitement, as compared to his. My struggles did not last a minute before he had shaken me off, and he fired again. There was a flash, a dreadful crashing noise, a hasty trampling of feet up stairs; the room was filled with noise and smoke, amid the gloom of which the villain seemed to vanish-and my husband stood over me.

I sunk into his arms. My brave Llewellyn! I exclaimed and he burst out laughing.

་

Why, my dear Mary, said he, what can bewitch you. to stay up so late-not, indeed, watching, for of that I acquit you but staying out of bed, in my honour? Would it not have been far better for you to have gone to sleep quietly in bed, instead of nodding uneasily in your chair? See what -you have done. Just as I opened the door, you gave a most vigorous jerk forwards, which has knocked your lamp off the

table, smashed it all to pieces, and singed one of the prettiest of your curls.

This, then, was the flashing and crashing, the smoking and the burning, which had drawn visions of robbers and pistols, and all the other terrible things, before my dozing eyes. I looked about, and I found it was broad daylight. Their Commonships had sate late, and I had fallen asleep, like the great majority of the members during the debate. In a moment I collected my faculties, and told my husband all the misfortunes which Morpheus had inflicted upon me. He laughed heartily.

. Well, I am glad my plate and your jewels are safe, even though I have lost the honour of being the preux chevalier coming in to rescue you in the hour of danger, and earning in good earnest the appellation of My brave Llewellyn.' But I must insist upon it, that good Aunt Winifred does not seduce you into any more suppers of Welsh rabbits. They are of marvellous potency in evoking or creating ghosts. As for myself, what kept us so late was this:--- we were in the third night of our debate on the Corn Laws, and we hoped to take a division; but there are two great guns to be discharged yet, and hang them! one is waiting for the other. So, after wasting three or four hours in sham divisions, about half an hour ago we agreed to an adjournment at last. - The principal arguments adduced to-night, my dear, were, in the first place, if corn— »

"

"

Come to

Nay, Llewellyn, nay, said I, that is not fair. bed. I have had one nightmare already to-night, and do spare me the Corn Laws.

Here somebody may say," Whatever we may think of this as a dream, there is nothing supernatural in the business." Stay awhile.

Have you never heard stories of dreams, in which people, -thousands of miles away, appear to their friends at the moment of their death?

It is admitted; but there is nothing of the kind here. Not quite, but something still worse. The moment of my dream was between six and seven o'clock in the morning,-and precisely at that moment, Philip, who appeared to, me as I have related, was at the distance of nearly two hundred miles from London, putting on his bridal garments, in the seventy-fifth year of his age, to marry Bessy Griffiths, not quite eighteen.

The story of my dream was talked about in the country, and a couple of years afterwards it came to the ears of Philip. The old man gravely shook his head. It's no wonder, » said he, with a sigh, my spirit was troubled and wandering about; for, poor thing, it knew what it were to go through, though I, old fool that I was, did not. »>

FOUR COMPOSITIONS AFTER THE ANTIQUE,

I. THE HUSBANDMAN.

Through fifty harvests crowned with yellow grain
With bronzed hand I tilled the Attic plain-
The seed in earliest spring I sowed-I reaped
Naked in mellow autumn, and upheaped
Upon the burthened floors the unstinted sheaves,
And pent in sheds from wintry storms my beeves.
I craved no servile hand the seed to throw;
I taught my hand betimes to reap and sow,
I fleeced my flocks-I weaned the youngling goats:
With watchful hand I barred the moorland cotes :
Around the reddening props the vines I led:
Beneath my feet the purple must was shed.
Nor was my labour, vain-my autumn hoard
Through winter's blasts enriched my liberal board.
Our sole reply to winds and rattling sleet
Were giddy bowls, and songs, and dancing feet.
For though all dark with hurrying storm the skies,
Smiled on our log-piled hearth the rural Deities.

II. THE SHEPHERD'S TOMB.

In no dark corner be my tomb, my friend;
No sunless yew above the spot suspend:
But earn for me a grave where shepherds tune
Their oat, and fountains kiss the unshaded moon:
House me in yellow moss, and then bestrew
Over the coping grass a flower or two;
So, gentle friend, shall know the passer-by
Thou wert a shepherd-youth, a shepherd I.

Unclose my wicket now-lead out my sheep-
Though I no more the tuneful vigil keep.
As lush the pasturage is, as when I won
The milk from the full teat at set of sun:
And other oats allure them to their folds,
As sweet as mine, along the level wolds:

Though I, who watched and piped, no more have need
Of Gaberdine, or Staff, or pastoral Reed.,

Upon his shield my bleeding boy was brought
Unto my door-I had no mournful thought.
No Spartan freeman He, whose age could weep
The godlike joy of that heroic sleep.

ON HER ASKING ME WHY I HAD WRITTEN NO VERSES LATELY.

She prayed me, first, to tell
Wherefore the silent spell

So long, O Lyre, had lain upon thy strings:
She prayed me, once again,

To loose, O Lyre, the chain

The chain that long hath stilled thy feeble murmurings. A tiny stone can fret

The shallow rivulet;

Like froward infant will it oft complain :