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little window, most luxuriously forgetting how she got there, and with her fancy as free from every image connected with the race of Robertses as if none of them had ever been born, There she sat while that high-minded family were arranging their plans, and there she would most contentedly have sat for hours longer, had not Mrs. Roberts suddenly burst in upon her, in order to summon her to take her place in the procession which had been at length arranged.

Mrs. Roberts always made a point of being very civil to Miss Harrington, and upon this occasion had addressed her in an accent of commiseration, which was quite affectionate.

"Dear me-dear me! I am afraid you must have been moped to death, my dear, sitting here so long all alone," had been her exclamation on opening the door, civilly adding, "but you must please to excuse us all, my dear Bertha, for we have been too busy to have any time left for politeness."

Bertha first started, as if a pistol had been fired off at her ear, and then said, very eagerly,

"Oh dear, no, ma'am, not the least in the world! I have been very happy indeed."

At that moment an idea which had more than once before suggested itself to the sagacious mind of Mrs. Roberts came upon her anew, with

all the force of conviction.

"That girl," thought she, "is more than half an idiot; but no mortal living shall ever find it out by my help. Poor dear creature! It will be a mercy to marry her, whether she likes it or not, to the son of such a family as ours, where she will be so sure to be taken care of. Poor dear creature!"

As she mentally breathed this exclamation, Mrs. Roberts felt a pleasing sensation at her heart, not very easy to be accurately defined. She would herself, and quite sincerely, have described it as a feeling of benevolence, arising from the conviction that this weakness of mind in poor dear Bertha, would render her own watchful care of her destiny invaluable, and make the adopting her into the bosom of her happy and highlygifted family, one of the most amiable acts that ever was performed. Other people might have fancied the agreeable sensation to have taken its rise from a sort of prophetic consciousness that there could be no great difficulty in making such a fool marry whomever she chose to put in her way; or the source of this complacent feeling might have been twofold, and compounded, though not quite in equal portions, of both. However this may be, Mrs. Roberts did set off from the hotel to take possession of her nice lodgings in the Balcony House, in very particular good humour with herself and all the world, and with the happy persuasion that none of the fine people whom she speedily meant to adopt as her intimate friends would ever find out how she got there.

04

VOICES FROM THE DEEP.

A YARN.

WE were somewhere off Cape d'Agulhas, on our homeward voyage from the Mauritius, fighting hard against a head wind, which, though not quite a gale, was yet sufficiently provoking. There was a nasty short cross sea too, and not the mile-long rolling swell you usually meet with in that quarter of the world, for the wind had suddenly changed. It was bitterly cold, and there was no lack of rain, nor of sleet either; and as you walked the deck, you would occasionally, among the soft, cold, squashy slipperiness, feel a big hailstone crunch under your shoe by way of variety. Now as I was never very partial to the above sort of circumstances, I was making myself as comfortable as I could below, with a glass of cold grog and some old sheets of the Bell's Life in London comicalities, when one of the boys scrambling down the ladder, shoved open the sliding-door of the cabin, thereby admitting a gust of cold air that made me shiver.

"Well, what do you want ?" said I.

"If you please, sir, the captain's compliments, would you come upon deck-there's a funonymon.'

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"Oh, is there?—the Flying Dutchman, I shouldn't wonder-we are just about his cruising ground now ;" and hastily putting on somebody's pea-jacket, and somebody else's hard a weather hat, I clambered on deck and looked around me. Every thing was dark and cold, though it had ceased to rain, and the quarterdeck and gangways had been swept. The sky seemed one mass of sooty black clouds, and you could not tell, from any indication of your eyes, whether it was vaulted, or flat as the ceiling of your room-all was blackness, shapelessness, and obscurity. The sea had a sort of dull, grayish appearance, from the mixture over its surface of white foam and pitchy water; there was nothing bright or phosphorescent about it; it was cold, dreary, and dispiriting, and the heavilyladen little brig plunged, and seemed to shake her shoulders, and plunge again, as if she had no particular relish for it herself; while at every shrug a shower of spray was blown aft, falling in big splashy drops upon the deck. As I was thus appreciating the full comfortlessness of the scene, the same boy addressed me, telling me the captain was forward on the weather-side of the forecastle. I immediately began to clapper-claw my way forward, holding on now by one thing, now by another, for she pitched so violently, that I was momentarily expecting to be chucked clean overboard. At length I brought up alongside the skipper, who, standing on a hen-coop, and holding on by the weather-shrouds, was peering anxiously out to windward.

"Do you hear that ?-did you hear any thing?" said he, suddenly turning to me.

"Nothing," said I; "but the moaning of the wind in the rigging, and the pile-driving thumps of her bows."

"Ah-hush—not a word-listen-there it is again."

"Where?" said I.

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Right out in the direction of my hand there-don't you hear

that?"

"By Heaven I hear a voice!—there again!" Here there was a lull, and we all distinctly heard it. It was a long, mournful cry, and had in its sound something inexpressibly harrowing. It seemed the voice of a strong man, exhausted in mind and body, weakened to a womanish state of feeling by hunger, exposure, misery, and despair; calling for help without hope to find it. It was actually musical, and had in its prolonged melancholy cadence something so acutely touching, as to make me experience a feeling precisely similar to that I used to have in my childhood, just when at the point of falling away into a fit of crying. We all stood entranced and motionless, listening till its dying fall was

lost in the rush of the wind and dash of the waves.

"The Lord look to that poor soul any how!" said a hoarse voice behind me, but in a tone of much feeling. I turned, and saw it was one of the crew, who were clustered, some forward at the heel of the bowsprit, and the others farther aft round the head of the long-boat; every body was on deck, and all had heard the cry, and were making whispering remarks, which, being to the windward, I could not distinctly hear.

Again the wind lulled, and again the long mournful hillo-0-0 swelled and sank upon our ears.

"It is broad abeam of us now, sir," said the mate.

"Yes," said the master, "it must be drifting down with the current. Can any of you see any thing?" But no one answered. "Here, you Tom Bradley, jump aft in the gangway, and answer their hail, whoever they are."

The young man, who had a remarkably loud and clear voice, went aft, mounted into the weather-main rigging, and immediately a trumpet-like "hillo-hoy" rang over the water. A minute, and it was answered by the same mournful call; but this time I could swear it was articulatethere were distinct words, though I could not make them out-moreover, the voice seemed more distant, and was well upon the quarter. The master and mate were of the same opinion.

"Come in board, Bradley," said the former. "Put her about, Mr. A (to the mate), we are sure to fetch the precise spot next tack;" and immediately with the usual noise and bustle, but with more than the usual smartness, round went the brig, and away upon the larboard

tack.

"Put a look-out at each cathead, and one at each A -"

"Ay, ay, sir."

For a few minutes we went on in silence.

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"I think we should be near the spot now, sir," said the mate. "Shall I hail them ?”

"Yes," said the master; and the mate going to leeward, hallooed at the top of his voice. There was no answer. By this time the moon became apparent, struggling through the fleeciness, between two of the great cloud masses. You could not see her exact disk, but the brightness between the clouds and the light shed upon the surface of the sea, little as it was, gave indication of her intention shortly to unveil herself.

"Keep a bright look out for'ard there," sung out the master.

"Ay, ay, sir," answered the man, not in the usual drawling way, but quickly and sharply, as if anxiously on the alert.

"Gangways!" another similar reply. "Hail again, Mr. A--." The mate hallooed again. There was no sound in answer. At that moment the moon shone out bright and clear. The edges of the vast rolling clouds became, as it were silverised, and a broad flow of light fell upon the sea around us, rendering every thing within the eye's range clear and distinct.

"Do you see any thing, men-any boat or raft, or any thing in the water?"

But the light was so bright and sudden, that it was nearly a minute, during which each man had searched with his eyes all the space within the horizon, before they answered, in a tone of disappointment and superstitious dread, "Nothing, sir-nothing, sir," one after the other.

"Bless my soul, isn't that strange? Do you see any thing?" (to me). "Nothing," said I.

"Here, Mr. A

go

aloft into the maintop, and send two or three of the people aloft also to look out. I say, Bradley, sing out, will ye-hail again."

Again the seaman hallooed-we waited, but there was no answering cry. The master was now much excited.

"Maintop there."

"Yes, sir."

"Do you see any thing?"

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Nothing, sir, but those two albatrosses in our wake." "Foretop," again cried he.

"Ay, ay, sir.'

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"Can you make out any thing?"

looks

Nothing on the water, sir, but there's something on our lee-bow that

very like the land."

"Come down, Mr. A

come down out of the tops, men, and stand

by to put her about again." The master's voice trembled, as he asked me, "What do you think of that, Mr. D--? Strange things occur in these seas."

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Why, I am puzzled enough," said I; "the poor fellow would seem to have sunk just after his last hail."

"No poor fellow in the case I fear," said he, with a look of much mystery. "This is not the first of these sort of airy tongues I've had to do with. Just let us get her well round on the other tack, and I'll come below and give you the yarn."

This was said as I was about to descend the companion, for the aspect of the evening was not such as to keep a man long on deck who had no business there; but ere I had got down two steps of the ladder all was dark again; the bright moon had withdrawn herself behind a thick cloud.

Shortly after, the master, along with the mate, Mr. A-(for it was the second mate's watch), came into the cabin, and helping themselves to a glass of grog and a cheeroot a-piece (for as there were no lady passengers, and none of us objected to the odour, the master did not care about smoking below), sat down with faces of much seriousness.

"As I was telling you, Mr. D," continued the master, "this is

man.

not my first experience of these sort of noises; I remember many years ago, when I was a boy on board the frigate Athalie,' in the river Plate, we had a quarter-master on board of the name of O'Hanlan, an IrishHe was a very good man so long as he was sober, only rather apt when he had his beer to become obstreperous, insisting that by right of birth he was legitimate King of Galway, or some other extensive district in Ireland. He was an odd sort of fellow, you may believe, and used in these fits to ask us to kiss his hand-a request to which you may guess our reply-and to swear that his family had been princes ages before the Saxon and Norman barbarians overrun his country, and stuck upon the surface of the soil the roots of their mushroom nobility; moreover, that a spirit attended his family, a malignant banshie, that rejoiced in the occurrence to them of any calamity. But when sober he was a first-rate sailor, and the officers knew it, and rather looked over his foibles. Well, there we were, with a light wind one night, groping our way up the mighty river, the leads being kept going regularly in the chains, and lookouts upon the bowsprit and at the foreyard arms. It was a beautiful evening, the water quite smooth, and the moon shining without a cloud as brightly as she did for those two or three minutes a little ago.

"Well, this Irish quarter-master was one of them in the chains, and just as he was swinging the lead forward, the lashing round his waist gave away, and overboard he went, with the lead line in his hand, with a dead plunge, not unlike that of the lead itself, and without a cry or any other indication of the accident. But the master, who, with his foot on a gun-carriage, had been looking over at him, saw him disappear, and rushing frantically aft, cried to the captain and first-lieutenant, A man overboard--O'Hanlan's overboard !'

"Let go the life-buoy!' cried the captain in much excitement, and the sentry forthwith pulling the trigger, it plunged into the water and fell away astern, with its reddish blue light flickering and flaring upon the smooth surface of the water. 'Heave-to immediately,' he added, addressing the first-lieutenant, and lower the boats.'

“But O'Hanlan was never more seen by us; after that first plunge he never rose to the surface, and though every eye that could was scanning the glassy water, still no one saw the least dark object to break the uniform bright level. The cutter and jollyboat were lowered and manned, but where to bid them pull was a question. Just at that moment we heard a loud cry, similar in every respect to that we heard to-night, away on our lee quarter.

"There is his voice,' cried the captain, 'right on the lee-quarter, right in the moon's wake; that's why you can't see him; give way, men, for God's sake ;-stretch your limbs-'tis for life," and away shot both boats, each with the officer standing up in the bows looking anxiously But when they had pulled about a hundred yards from the ship without seeing any object, the mournful cry came again upon our ears, but from the weather quarter this time.

out.

"Gracious Heaven, Mr. Grey,' said the captain, have we been mistaken, and sent the boats in the wrong direction?'

"No, sir,' said the first-lieutenant, the sound most assuredly came from the lee-quarter, I heard it most distinctly,' and turning to the surgeon and master, who were hard by, they both corroborated his assertion from the most decided evidence of their senses.

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