upon such an occasion; but it was many weeks before her faculties were restored to their natural and healthful play.

It is needless to say that the frightened guests hurried from the house of Peleg; and that the cause of their premature dismissal created a deep and lasting sensation in the little town of Sherburne.

We have now brought our story nearly to its close. It remains for us only to satisfy the reader in a few particulars, by disposing of our characters in a manner befitting their several stations, and consonant to the parts they have sustained in this drama of Real Life.

The war of the Revolution, which at first affected the people of Nantucket most disastrously, was much softened in its rigour after the neutrality of the island had been recognised by the contending parties: but it was not until peace was restored, and the colonies became independent states, that its trade thoroughly revived and flourished again. Many families, at the beginning of the war, removed to the state of New-York, and settled themselves at a place which they called “The Nine Partners;" and the flourishing city of Hudson, at the head of the deep water on the river of the same name, owes its origin, in a great measure, to the whalefishermen of Nantucket, who peopled it, and afterward sent out their whaling-ships from the port. The second war between the United States and Great Britain affected the island in the same way as that of the Revolution. Its commerce was annihilated-its ships in the Pacific captured-and its local distresses were equally great. In this last war, similar arrangements were entered into with the contending powers, from absolute necessity; while many of its people, abandoning

the country.

their ancient homes, were scattered over the interior of Some threescore families, in one body, moved off to the far West, and settled in and about Cincinnati, in Ohio; and, at this day, names known at the beginning of the Revolution as appertaining to Nantucket alone may be found dispersed over the continent in all directions.

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Vast accessions have since been made to the island population from abroad; its ancient manners greatly altered; its shearing-days, though still kept up, are much shorn of their former splendour and conviviality; the Quakers have ceased to predominate, and other religious denominations are establishing themselves in their ancient strong-hold; the whale-fishery, once the sole monopoly of the island, is pursued with equal vigour in other parts of the country; but the fame of the Nantucket commanders has not abated a jot, and they are still preferred over those of the whole world besides; education flourishes, and mercantile and mechanical operations of all kinds have been introduced, and are successfully carried on upon the island; musical societies and dancing associations thrive apace; every good, and eke almost every evil known to other places, are now as common here as elsewhere. Lawyers alone have, as yet, scarce an abiding-place in Nantucket; and the jail the follower, the very jackal of civilization-is tenantless! The enterprise of the place has undergone no change, except, perhaps, for the better. Thrift, and prosperity, and hospitality, and politeness, and amenity of manners, never prevailed more generally than now, when the rigid manners of the ancients have given way to the refinements of polished society.

But let us return to the characters of our tale.

Jethro Coffin, a worthy and honourable representative of the name, and a direct descendant of the "first Trustum Coffin," lived to a good old age, respected by everybody who knew him; and, when well stricken in

years, he died, as he had lived, an honest man, and in charity with all mankind.

Miriam Coffin, who was a woman of strong passions, and ambitious to the last degree, from the period of Jethro's return till his death devoted herself to matronly cares; but it was with a great deal of secret discontent that she witnessed the triumph of her enemies, and saw them build up their prosperity upon her ruin. She con

trived, however, though at a late day, to put the disarranged affairs of her household and her previous business operations in a fair train of equitable adjustment; and she compelled many to make restitution for the wrongs she had sustained at their hands. She was a being of fierce mind and great force of intellect; but the softer shades of female character were absent in her composition. She was a woman that one might easily fear, but never thoroughly love nor admire. In her reverses she was more anxious than ever that her daughter should unite her destiny with Grimshaw; and she urged so many good reasons in that behalf, and pestered her so incessantly with the theme, that a reluctant consent was finally wrung from Ruth, and the marriage rites were shortly afterward performed.

The wedding-day was not a joyous season to Ruth; and her heart almost sank within her, when she pronounced the vow of love and obedience at the altar. But Grimshaw, though naturally selfish, was not the worst of men. He had no positive vices-and his outward morality was unimpeachable; and in the main he made a good husband. That he was strongly attached to Ruth was certain; and though his first design may have been to unite himself to her in order to better his estate, by coming into possession of her promised dowery, yet, when misfortunes overwhelmed her house, he did not suffer his ardour to cool, nor his attentions to flag. It was an honourable trait in his conduct towards her, and she did not fail to perceive and appreciate it. In the course of their wedded life, if there were no very

strong symptoms of love, neither were there any remarkable out-breakings of angry and quarrelsome tempers. It was, in this respect, rather a happy union than otherwise; for their lives flowed on with an even tenour. Ruth reigned undisputed mistress of her mansion; and Grimshaw,-good, easy man,―never strove to thwart her inclinations. He was, in short, a memorable sample of Yankee perseverance: and, content with obtaining his ends, he never very scrupulously canvassed the means by which he had gained them.

The country-house of Miriam was one among the few things of her former possessions which did not fall into the hands of the Philistines. The new married pair chose it for their residence, and it suited the natural indolence of Grimshaw passing well. There were fishing and fowling in abundance in its neighbourhood: and these facilities, so close at hand, eventually confirmed Grimshaw in the habits of the sportsman. The house has passed into other hands, and some sixty years have gone by since it was thus inhabited: but even to this day, among other things associated with Miriam Coffin's name, the iron hooks upon which 'Squire Grimshaw's fowling piece used to hang, are pointed out by the present occupants to strangers as a sort of curiosity belonging to another age, and especially as giving evidence of the propensities of the sonin-law of that far-famed woman.

The explorer after antiquities will, however, look in vain for the smugglers' vaulted passages under ground, which opened among the clump of bushes that we have more than once referred to. At the command of Ruth, that singular communication with the house was cut off, and every vestige of the covered way removed; so that there are now no remains which indicate its extent, or give evidence of the uses to which it had been applied.

Young Isaac Coffin proved to be a worthy son of a worthy father. His fearless conduct on board the