now you are no longer what you have been. My only brother has been appointed to a command in the preventive service on this coast!” Frank started, and turned pale. “I expect him every instant,” she continued—“Oh, I know you will like him! He is so open, and manly, and loyal—so beautiful, and brave !” At the instant, a tumultuous noise was heard in the hall, as of numerous persons carrying some weighty object; and soon after, a female servant entered the room, and exclaimed—“A man murdered at the Cove!” Jane did not shrink, nor start, nor move ; but calmly fixed her eyes upon her lover, who sank, pale, faint and soul-stricken, into a chair. “My heart foretold it !” said she, sitting down beside him, and taking his cold clammy hand within hers; “ you would not promise not to do it! you could not-for all was ordained !” By the pressure of the crowd in the hall, the room-door was burst open, and Jane suddenly started up, and ran towards the fearful object in the midst. There appeared to be a disposition, on the part of the bystanders, to prevent her approach ; and cries of “shut the door!” echoed on all sides ; but, with almost preternatural strength, she forced her way through the crowd, and obtained a full view of the body. She then turned round, without uttering a word, and beckoned to her lover, who still sate oppressed with horror and expectation upon the chair. He rushed towards her through the vista of spectators ; clasped her in his trembling arms ; and fixed upon her closing eyes a look of love, pity, and despair. He then laid her gently down by the lifeless body of her brother— the dead by the dead! In another moment Francis Hardy had left the house, and was never seen or heard of more. SONNET. ON LEAVING — , IN DEVONSHIRE. Fair fields, rich hedgerows; the eternal sea, THE MOTHER AND CHILD. LINES, SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE.* BY T. K. HERVEY. They may not weep who gaze on thee!- It dries the source of tears, Unheard for many years ; Young mother !-oh! how long they haunt The after-paths of time, Whose memory, like the chime * See the frontispiece to this volume. The smile that, then when all things smiled, Was, ever, like none other ;- But not like thine, young mother! And oh! how beautifully bright, Upon thy glad, young brow, Lies hallowing all things, now! Is winnowed from thy sighs, Is tending to the skies !— How far more fair thou art! A cestus of the heart, Across thy fancy throng,- Breathe out their sweetest song! And thou—whose resting-place is, still, A gentle mother's breast,- Thy sweet and pleasant rest ; Nor any dream so sweet,- Its graves beneath thy feet, Thine early home shall seem, to thee, Some scene of vanished faëry ;When thou, perchance, shalt sit apart, To sorrow o'er thy silent heart, A dial, with its sunlight gone, That only speaks when shone upon ! A mother's love !—that gushing spring, That sends a sweet and silver stream (Beneath whose low, dim murmuring The soul lies down, to dream |