caprice, or the premature desire to seize on a rank to which I gave you title, only under condition that our marriage, for a time, should continue secret. If my pro

posal disgust you, it is yourself has brought it on both of us. There is no other remedy-you must do what your own impatient folly hath rendered necessary-I command you.'

"I cannot put your commands, my lord, in balance with those of honor and conscience. I will not, in this instance, obey you. You may achieve your own dishonor, to which these crooked policies naturally tend, but I will do naught that can blemish mine."

"My lord, my lady is too much prejudiced against me, unhappily, to listen to what I can offer; yet it may please her better than what she proposes. She has good interest with Master Edmund Tressilian, and could doubtless prevail on him to consent to be her companion to Lidcote Hall, and there she might remain in safety until time permitted the development of this mystery.

Leicester was silent, but stood looking eagerly on Amy, with eyes which seemed to glow as much with suspicion as displeasure.

The countess only said, "Would to God I were in my father's house! When I left it, I little thought I was leaving peace of mind and honor behind me.

Varney proceeded with a tone of deliberation, "Doubtless this will make it necessary to take strangers into my lord's counsels; but surely the countess will be warrant for the honor of Master Tressilian, and such of her father's family—'

"Peace, Varney," said Leicester; "by Heaven, I will strike my dagger into thee, if again thou namest Tressilian as a partner of my counsels!"

I

"And wherefore not?" said the countess; "unless they be counsels fitter for such as Varney, than for a man of stainless honor and integrity. My lord, my lord, bend no angry brows on me-it is the truth, and it is I who speak it. I once did Tressilian wrong for your sake. will not do him the further injustice of being silent when his honor is brought into question. I can forbear," she said, looking at Varney, "to pull the mask off hypocrisy, but I will not permit virtue to be slandered in my hearing."

There was a dead pause. Leicester stood displeased, yet undetermined, and too conscious of the weakness of his cause; while Varney, with a deep and hypocritical affectation of sorrow, mingled with humility, bent his eyes on the ground.

It was then that the Countess Amy displayed, in the midst of distress and difficulty, the natural energy of character, which would have rendered her, had fate allowed, a distinguished ornament of the rank which she held.

She walked up to Leicester with a composed step, a dignified air, and looks in which strong affection essayed in vain to shake the firmness of conscious truth and rectitude of principle. "You have spoken your mind, my lord," she said, "in these difficulties with which, unhappily, I have found myself unable to comply. This gentleman-this person I should say has hinted at another scheme, to which I object not, but as it displeases you. Will your lordship be pleased to hear what a young and timid woman, but your most affectionate wife, can suggest in the present extremity?"

Leicester was silent, but bent his head toward the countess, as an intimation that she was at liberty to proceed.

"There hath been but one cause for all these evils, my lord," she proceeded; "and it resolves itself into the mysterious duplicity with which you have been induced to surround yourself. Extricate yourself at once, my lord, from the tyranny of these disgraceful trammels. Take your ill-fated wife by the hand, lead her to the footstool of Elizabeth's throne; say, that 'in a moment of infatuation moved by supposed beauty, of which none perhaps can now trace even the remains, I gave my hand to this Amy Robsart.' You will then have done justice to me, my lord, and to your own honor; and should law or power require you to part from me, I will oppose no objection, since then I may with honor hide a grieved and broken heart in those shades from which your love withdrew me. Then-have but a little patience,--and Amy's life will not long darken your brighter prospects."

"I am not worthy of you, Amy, that could weigh aught which ambition has to give against such a heart as thine! I have a bitter penance to perform, in disentangling all

the meshes of my own deceitful policy. And the queenbut let her take my head, as she has threatened!"

“Your head, my lord! because you use the freedom and liberty of an English subject in choosing a wife? For shame; it is this distrust of the queen's justice, this misapprehension of danger, which cannot but be imaginary, that, like scare-crows, have induced you to forsake the straightforward path, which, as it is the best, is also the safest.'

"Ah, Amy, thou little knowest! Fear not, thou shalt see Dudley bear himself worthy of his name. I must instantly communicate with some of those friends on whom I can best rely; for, as things stand, I may be made prisoner in my own castle.'

"O my good lord, make no faction in a peaceful state! There is no friend can help us so well as our own candid truth and honor. Bring but these to our assistance, and you are safe amidst a whole army of the envious and malignant. Leave these behind you, and all other defense will be fruitless. Truth, my noble lord, is well painted unarmed."

"But Wisdom, Amy, is arrayed in panoply of proof. Argue not with me on the means I shall use to render my confession as safe as may be; it will be fraught with enough of danger, do what we will.-Varney, we must hence.-Farewell, Amy, whom I am to vindicate as mine own, at an expense and risk of which thou alone couldst be worthy! You shall soon hear further from me.

He embraced her fervently, muffled himself as before, and accompanied Varney from the apartment.

Sir Walter Scott.

EXTRACT FROM MORITURI SALUTAMUS.

In medieval Rome, I know not where,

There stood an image with its arm in air,

And on its lifted finger, shining clear,

A golden ring with the device, "Strike here!"

Greatly the people wondered, though none guessed
The meaning that these words but half expressed,
Until a learned clerk, who at noonday

With downcast eyes was passing on his way,

Paused, and observed the spot, and marked it well, Whereon the shadow of the finger fell,

And coming back at midnight, delved, and found A secret stairway leading underground.

Down this he passed into a spacious hall,
Lit by a flaming jewel on the wall;
And opposite, in threatening attitude,
With bow and shaft a brazen statue stood;
Upon its forehead, like a coronet,

Were these mysterious words of menace set: "That which I am, I am; my fatal aim

None can escape, not even yon luminous flame!"
Midway the hall was a fair table placed,

With cloth of gold, and golden cups enchased
With rubies, and the plates and knives were gold,
And gold the bread and viands manifold.
Around it, silent, motionless, and sad,

Were seated gallant knights in armor clad,
And ladies beautiful with plume and zone,

But they were stone, their hearts within were stone;
And the vast hall was filled in every part
With silent crowds, stony in face and heart.

Long at the scene, bewildered and amazed,
The trembling clerk in speechless wonder gazed;
Then from the table, by his greed made bold,
He seized a goblet and a knife of gold,

And suddenly from their seats the guests upsprang,
The vaulted ceilings with loud clamors rang,
The archer sped his arrow, at their call,
Shattering the lambent jewel on the wall,
And all was dark around and overhead;—
Stark on the floor the luckless clerk lay dead!

The writer of this legend then records
Its ghostly application in these words:
The image is the Adversary old,

Whose beckoning finger points to realms of gold;
Our lusts and passions are the downward stair
That leads the soul from a diviner air;
The archer, Death, the flaming jewel, Life,
Terrestrial goods, the goblet and the knife;

The knights and ladies, all whose flesh and bone
By avarice have been hardened into stone;
The clerk, the scholar, whom the love of pelf
Tempts from his books and from his nobler self.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

SHAMUS O'BRIEN.

Jist after the war, in the year '98,

As soon as the boys wor all scattered and bate,
'Twas the custom, whenever a pisant was got,
To hang him by thrial-barrin' sich as was shot.
There was thrial by jury goin' on by daylight,
And the martial-law hangin' the lavins by night.
It's them was hard times for an honest gossoon:
If he missed in the judges—he 'd meet a dragoon;
An' whether the sodgers or judges gev sentence,
The divil a much time they allowed for repentance.
An' it's many 's the fine boy was then on his keepin'
Wid small share iv restin' or atin' or sleepin',
An' because they loved Erin, an' scorned to sell it,
A prey for the bloodhound, a mark for the bullet-
Unsheltered by night, and unrested by day,

With the heath for their barrack, revenge for their pay;
An' the bravest an' hardiest boy iv them all
Was SHAMUS O'BRIEN, from the town iv Glingall.

His limbs were well set, an' his body was light,

An' the keen-fanged hound had not teeth half so white;
But his face was as pale as the face of the dead,
And his cheek never warmed with the blush of the red.

An' for all that he was n't an ugly young bye,
For the divil himself could n't blaze with his eye,
So droll an' so wicked, so dark and so bright,
Like a fire-flash that crosses the depth of the night!
An' he was the best mower that ever has been,
An' the illigantest hurler that ever was seen.
An' in fencin' he gave Patrick Mooney a cut,
An' in jumpin' he bate Tim Mulloney a fut;