concern at another season, it now added considerably to her distraction. But a far greater affliction was in store for her. Just as the clergyman approached the altar, she perceived a boy steal quickly into the church, and ensconce himself behind the woollen-draper who, in order to carry on his amatory pursuits with greater convenience, and at the same time display his figure (of which he was not a little vain) to the utmost advantage, preferred a standing to a sitting posture. Of this boy she had only caught a glimpse ; but that glimpse was sufficient to satisfy her it was her son, and, if she could have questioned her own instinctive love, she could not question her antipathy, when she beheld, partly concealed by a pillar immediately in the rear of the woollen-draper, the dark figure and truculent features of Jonathan Wild. As she looked in this direction, the thief-taker raised his eyes-those grey, blood-thirsty eyes !—their glare froze the life-blood in her veins. As she averted her gaze, a terrible idea crossed her. Why was he there? why did the tempter dare to invade that sacred spot? She could not answer her own questions, but vague fearful suspicions passed through her mind. Meanwhile, the service proceeded; and the awful command, "Thou shalt not steal!" was solemnly uttered by the preacher, when Mrs. Sheppard, who had again looked round towards her son, beheld a hand glance along the side of the woollendraper. She could not see what occurred, though she guessed it; but she saw Jonathan's devilish, triumphing glance, and read in it"Your son has committed a robbery-here-in these holy walls-he is mine-mine-for ever!" She uttered a loud scream, and fainted. THE BRIDEGROOM'S STAR. In nights calm and clear, 'mid the bright orbs I try To trace her bright home in the beautiful sky; And I gaze on some star, till in fancy I see The far-shining Spirit still smiling on me.-Mirror. Anon. * Ir is the fifth, and on the fifteenth I shall be the happiest of mortal men. Ten short days !—no, ten long, long days!—must fade into longer nights, before I can call my Marion mine. Ten days!--why, there are more than two hundred,—almost three hundred hours to be passed; but will not Hope lighten them, will not gentle Sleep enclose some of them within her forgetful curtains, and every moment of time bring me nearer and nearer to the goal of all my wishes and all my prayers? Yet I am wretched with the excess of Joy, -the excess of Joy, at whose approach Fear has grown into excess greater still. Ah! how like to far travel is the journey of life! While distant from its object and its home, the mind feels but languid longings for their attainment, shadowy and unabiding presentiments of possible evil; but as we near them, as the intervening space diminishes, as the thousand miles shorten into one, how beats the pulse as the blood rushes through every vein! how throbs the heart to bursting! how weary seems the way! how dreadfully arise the spectres of unheard-of change or fatal accident !—The last brief tide is the voyage round the world,—the last few hours is the sum and history of human existence. * And well might Henry Sturmond thus dwell on the date of his appointed union; for if ever angel were embodied in an earthly form, it was in the idol of his devoted affections. Marion was the loveliest of the lovely, the sweetest of the sweet; so bright, and yet so soft; so wise, and yet so simple; so noble, and yet so tender; that whilst ardent passion bent in holy warmth before the blooming girl, a feeling allied to adoration hallowed the presence of the perfect woman. What a countenance was hers, the model fixed, but the expression ever varying! On her ample brow sat Intellect enthroned; and round that throne what radiance of auburn gold. In her deep hazel eye now lightened the glance of spiritual essence, now swam the dewy moisture of pity, now rose and fell the indescribable meanings of love. On her rosy lips the smile of playful innocence was cradled; nor did the suckling leave its treasure-bed unless exiled for a moment by the advent of sympathy for sorrow, or of sorrow for misery. Such was Marion Delmar in face, nor was she in person less admirable. Nature had set her seal upon the most precious casket that ever enshrined an immortal gem,—the setting the proudest and most glorious production of earth, the brightness within an emanation of Heaven. *** And old Time wore on; wore on, as from the creation, regardless alike of the sighs of love, the pangs of disappointment, the delights of pleasure, the shricks of pain, the shouts of mirth, the groans of woe, the revels of sport, the terrors of death. *** Of the ten days, eight were flown; and whither had they flown, laden with all these millions of blessings and curses? They had flown back in mystery while they seemed to hurry onward,—they had returned to that abyss of eternity from which they sprung, and darkness covered them. ***To-morrow, Henry," said Marion, clasping his hand in hers, and looking with measureless confiding into his watchful eye, "to-morrow I would be alone." To a glance that seemed of the kindest reproach, she replied, "Yes, my dearest Henry, on the next morn I will be yours for life and unto death. It is a solemn act—an act I will fulfil with a devotedness of heart and soul that would satisfy the most avaricious miser of love; but let me have only this one day to prepare myself to be worthy of you, to seek that aid which alone can truly make our fate what every human promise tells us it will be,— a fate of lasting affection, and peace and joy. Indeed, my dearest Henry, I would to-morrow be alone!" "Then give me now, for my consent, one more, one last eve of wandering bliss: let us visit together the spots sacred to our loves, -the grove ringing with the song of birds ere they seek their downy nests, the bank redolent of flowers, and the stream gurgling its music in requital for their odours, the romantic fall where first I breathed my vows of eternal truth, and the ruined abbey that o'ertops the scene where these vows were accepted and ratified by her to whom I owe life-more than life; all that can make life acceptable, what life can never repay." *** The dawn of morning! On a bed of sickness, of agony, lay Marion Delmar. Writhing in the torture of that fell disease before whose appalling might youth and strength were swept away as grass before the scythe of the mower. Alas, for Henry! the stern commands of skill forbade him even to approach that bed of infection and of death. Brief was its awful struggle. Distorted were the ghastly features of matchless loveliness, but last night |