ledge that there are yet many things far beyond our finite comprehension, and that the ways of the Most High are indeed inscrutable, unless it is His divine will and pleasure to make plain to us the exceeding mystery thereof.

Though this plant, so celebrated in antiquity, has met with but few admirers in these later times, it has not been so entirely neglected by the bards of our own age and country, as Mr. Phillips, in his "Flora Historica," (a valuable work to which. we are indebted for much information,) states, who for want of an English verse to head his chapter, inserts the following by a French author

"The flower of fools is Hellebore

And they to poets dedicate it."

Truly, not a very complimentary assertion, and one calculated we should think to bring a nest of hornets about his ears, were the genus iritabile so easily aroused to anger as their proverbial appellation would lead one to suppose.

'Tis ever the rule, in that sordid school

Where the worldly wise are taught,
To look upon him as a dreaming fool,
Who giveth to solemn thought,

Those hours, in the crowded mart they spend,
Where all to the idol, Mammon, bend,

And where human souls are bought.

We know

And it is the want of this worldly wisdom that has caused the children of the Muses to be looked upon as fools by persons who understand them not; but their's is a higher calling; they may not stoop to become traffickers and money changers in the temple; they are the priests who minister at the altar, and expound those divine oracles that issue from the holy of holies, for the benefit of the multitudes, who, alas! but too often make a mockery of their teachers.

Darwin has made the Hellebore the emblem of Female Inconstancy; of course our fair readers will believe us, when we assure them that we do not at all believe in the existence of such a thing as inconstancy in their sex; it is a base libel, only as his lines are very musical, we quote them in conclusion.

"Bright as the silvery plume, or pearly shell,
The snow-white rose, or lily's virgin bell,
The fair Helleborus attractive shone,
Warmed every sage, and every shepherd won.
-Erewhile how changed! in dim suffusion lies
The glance divine that brightened in the eyes;
Cold are those lips where smiles seductive hung,
And the weak accents linger on the tongue."

THE STORY OF A WATCH;

OR THE FATAL EFFECTS OF

SUPERSTITIOUS

FEAR.

THERE are few of our old families that have not some tradition interwoven with their domestic history-a story, founded perhaps upon some circumstance in their rise from obscurity and preserved in the memory of their descendants long after the date of the legend had given it importance. To this love of traditional lore, always found among the retainers of an ancient family, we doubtless owe many of those tales of "fatal days," which, perpetuated from age to age, at last become Prophesies, and in their wild significance-propounded in some rude enigma or clumsy distich-at length fix themselves on the minds of the parties whose fate they foretell.

Thus, in the Lyttleton family, a certain day in the year was looked upon as fatal to the house, and as the time approached, the peasantry anxiously awaited the recurrence of some evil that had hitherto strangely enough always happened near the

fatal hour.

At the time we speak of, the head of the house was a good and honored man, liberal in the dispensation of his ample revenues, manly in his habits, courteous in his demeanour and with intelligence fitting him for his position. All were then interested in his life, and the approach of the "fatal day" was watched with an indefinite fear which not only pervaded the uninstructed villagers, but was also shared in by the very domestics themselves. To provide against an evil that not seldom happens the realization of a prophesy in the fatal excitement caused by the warning in the breast of the fore-doomed-every precaution which love or friendship could suggest was used to prevent such an anticipation of the doom.

On the day in question the whole country had been invited to share in the hospitalities of the noble mansion. From the first dawn the merry bells echoed from the village churches, the rustic bands were busy calling the peasantry together; girls were weaving their brightest ribands in their hair; men were donning their cleanest jackets; and even old women were putting their spinning-wheels or lace-pillows aside for the day, to hobble off to the park. And up they came, winding through the

green lanes, now in the full freshness of the summer-time, or brightening up the field path with their gay and picturesque dresses. Groups of two's and three's with rosy children hanging round the skirt of the quilted petticoat or fastening their little hands to the lowest button of the broad coat, or scrambling up the hedges by the wayside, returning with hands loaded with honeysuckle or briar, or racing on before, over every flower hillock in the road after old Shock, the sheep-dog, who had his holiday too, in honour of the Festival. Now and then half a dozen girls came along-in a string-with their hats loosely tied round their laughing faces; in their gayest boddices and skirts of every hue beneath which the feet twinkled in harmony with the joyous beating of their hearts. And soon came the village procession-the musicians: a crazy violin and a wheezy flageolet, with a drum, which more than made up for any deficiency of sound in the other instruments, and then the flags! had the sun ever shone upon brighter colors or more glorious devices!

Aye, it was a day for all good and honest men to revel in. The lord who could look down upon that happy tenantry and call those hearts "his own" had something to be proud of. But, although his eye could not help lighting up as the villagers moved into the park and a tear of joy rose as the hearty cheers of the fine fellows before him rent the air, yet there was a vague inquietude in his breast difficult either to still or account. for. The prophesy of the day he had always laughed at; an idle tradition of an ignorant age! it had never touched him. True, his steward had told him every year of flocks scattered, crops destroyed, meadows flooded, or lightning accidents: and the man had perversely linked these circumstances with the "fatal day," but his Lordship had never listened to the coincidences, if such they were, and if aught affected him, he did not trace it to this cause.

The day wore on the villagers had left the park for their humble homes and the friends of the family had arrived; amongst them not a few of the younger men especially-determined to spend a jovial night in defiance of the foolish warning that threatened the house.

They were all in full carousal when the midnight hour-the hour marked for the fulfillment of the prophesy-resounded from every clock in the house, and high and ringing was the shout which proclaimed the failure of the tradition, as one by one, they produced their several watches and pointed in triumph to the bands.

After a parting cup-they kept better hours than we do now, the guests departed and having wrung the hand of his last friend, who left congratulating him on his escape from his unexplained fate, their host retired to his chamber. As soon as he entered it, he went as usual to his dressing table to wind up the old watch-a heirloom in the family which his lordship always kept in this room. He took it up mechanically and was on the point of winding it, when, looking at the dial he saw that it pointed within five minutes of twelve?

At once all his courage forsook him. "This then, was the trick they had practised on him"-the clocks in the house had all been put on an hour: and wrought up by the excitement of the day, to the fatal fear of the moment, he rushed from the room as his servant entered it, who had only time to catch his master, as he fell into his arms-dead!

The Watch, the mysterious agent in this singular but literally true story is still in the possession of the children of an old servitor of the house, and in addition to the interest attaching to its history it, has a character of its own, in the massiveness of its make and the peculiarity of its construction.

PRIDE AND JEALOUSY.

A Simple Story.

CHAPTER I.

IN "Merrie England," that is England which once was "Merrie"-Alas for the days! there is much of delightful scenery to be found in the neighbourhood of her larger manufacturing towns. Of this Lancashire, particularly the Northern division of it, affords an apt illustration. It is true that of late this county has become dotted with factories; and that railways have been constructed across its plains, bisecting its hills and soaring through its valleys: yet in many respects this Northern shire may fairly contend for the palm with Somerset or Devon. Bounded on the north by Cumberland and Westmoreland, on the east by Yorkshire, and on the south by Cheshire, (its western border being open to the Irish sea,) it partakes in some degree of the character of each of these counties, whilst in many

parts it presents the appearance almost of nature's garden, and may be said to enter into rivalry with Kent or Sussex. We may particularly refer to the lake and mountain scenery in the hundred of Furness and Lonsdale, to the beautiful landscapes of Clitheroe and Whalley, Redsear, Whitewell, and similar spots, the memory of which will readily suggest itself to the dwellers in the county, or those who, attracted by the legendary lore connected with many of its more beautiful views, or by its fine old ruins of Hoghton Tower, Furness Abbey, Whalley Priory and such time-honored places, have been tempted to wander amidst the loneliness of the one or linger in the sacred precincts of the other.

Near one of its pretty rural villages, lying in a verdant valley, there stood not many years ago a small, neat, red-brick built house called, Ormington Lodge. At the time to which we now refer an elderly gentleman had just effected the purchase of the property, with the intention of settling there and of passing the remnant of his days in quiet and peace amidst its retirement and shade. Although but a small cottage it was entirely surrounded by its own grounds, which were comparatively speaking extensive; these were bordered on three sides by thriving plantations, and in front, at the foot of a sloping lawn, ran a rippling stream which poured its waters into a larger and nobler river emptying itself into the sea. The lodge was situated at a little distance from the village, through the main street of which had to travel in passing from the adjacent manufacturing town. Diverging a little from the high road you had to wend your way through a winding avenue shaded by rows of chesnut trees, which led to the front of the house. Although in itself but a humble abode, Ormington Lodge was the very spot for young love to ripen in, and in which old age might repose in calm and contemplation.

you

At a distance of a mile or two, towering on a lofty hill stood the Town of Factories." Beneath it but on a gentle eminence was to be seen the village church rising above the little forest from which it seemed to have sprung, and a delightful object in that lovely landscape did it form for the eye to dwell upon. Hence far and near a magnificent prospect broke upon the view, bounded in the distance by the blue hills lifting their crests into the skies.

The family of the new proprietor of the lodge, Mr. Mordaunt Ormington, consisted of a youth of about fifteen years of age, a nephew; a girl of somewhere about the same age,