bited a strange and momentary gleam of joy and of misery mingled together. He entered the dwelling of his infancy with delight, aud met his brother with emotion. But his dark and troubled eye betokened a fearful change, when he beheld the other playmate of his infancy. Though beautiful as the imagination could conceive, she appeared otherwise than he expected. Her form and face were associated with some of his wildest reveries, his feelings of affection were united with many undefinable sensations, he felt as if she was not the wife of his brother, although he knew her to be so, and his soul sickened at the thought.

"He passed the night in a feverish state of joy and horror. From the window of a lonely tower he beheld the moon shining amid the bright blue of an alpine sky, and diffusing a calm and beautiful light on the silvery snow. The eagle owl uttered her long and plaintive note from the castellated summits which overhung the valley, and the feet of the wild chamois were heard rebounding from the neighbouring rocks: these accorded with the gentler feelings of his mind; but the strong spirit which so frequently overcame him listened with intense delight to the dreadful roar of an immense torrent, which was precipitated from the summit of an adjoining cliff among broken rocks and pines, overturned and up-rooted, or to the still mightier voice of the avalanche, suddenly descending with the accumulated snows of a hundred years.

"In the morning he met the object of his unhappy passion. Her eyes were dim with tears, and a cloud of sorrow had darkened the light of her lovely counte

nance.

"For some time there was a mutual constraint in their manner, which both were afraid to acknowledge, and neither was able to dispel. Even the uncontrollable spirit of the wanderer was oppressed and overcome, and he wished he had never returned to the dwelling of his ancestors. The lady was equally aware of the awful peril of their situation, and without the knowledge of

her husband, she prepared to depart from the castle, and take the veil in a convent situated in a neighbouring valley.

"With this resolution she departed on the following morning; but in crossing an alpine pass, which conducted by a nearer route to the adjoining valley, she was enveloped in mists and vapour, and lost all knowledge of the surrounding country. The clouds closed in around her, and a tremendous thunder-storm took place in the valley beneath. She wandered about for some time, in hopes of gaining a glimpse, through the clouds, of some accustomed object to direct her steps, till exhausted by fatigue and fear, she reclined upon a dark rock, in the crevices of which, though it was now the heat of summer, there were many patches of snow. There she sat, in a state of feverish delirium, till a gentle air dispelled the dense vapour from before her feet, and discovered an enormous chasm, down which she must have fallen, if she had taken another step. While breathing a silent prayer to heaven for this providential. escape, strange sounds were heard, as of some disembodied voice floating among the clouds. Suddenly she perceived, within a few paces, the figure of the wanderer tossing his arms in the air, his eye inflamed, and his general aspect, wild and distracted-he then appeared meditating a deed of sin,-she rushed towards him, and, clasping him in her arms, dragged him backwards, just as he was about to precipitate himself into the gulf below.

"Overcome by bodily fatigue, and agitation of mind, they remained for some time in a state of insensibility. The brother first revived from his stupor; and finding her whose image was pictured in his soul lying by his side, with her arms resting upon his shoulder, he believed for a moment that he must have executed the dreadful deed he had meditated, and had awakened in heaven. The gentle form of the lady was again reanimated, and slowly she opened her beautiful eyes. She questioned him regarding the purpose of his visit to that desolate spot-a full explanation took place of their mutual

VOL. I.

P

sensations, and they confessed the passion which consumed them.

"The sun was now high in heaven-the clouds of the morning had ascended to the loftiest Alps-and the mists, ' into their airy elements resolved, were gone.' As the god of day advanced, dark valleys were suddenly illuminated, and lovely lakes brightened like mirrors among the hills-their waters sparkling with the fresh breeze of the morning. The most beautiful clouds were sailing in the air-some breaking on the mountain tops, and others resting on the sombre pines, or slumbering on the surface of the unilluminated valleys. The shrill whistle of the marmot was no longer heard, and the chamois had bounded to its inaccessible retreat. The vast range of the neighbouring Alps was next distinctly visible, and presented to the eyes of the beholders 'glory beyond all glory ever seen.'

"In the mean time a change had taken place in the feelings of the mountain pair, which was powerfully strengthened by the glad face of nature. The glorious hues of earth and sky seemed indeed to sanction and rejoice in their mutual happiness. The darker spirit of the brother had now fearfully overcome him. The dreaming predictions of his most imaginative years appeared realized in their fullest extent, and the voice of prudence and of nature was inaudible amidst the intoxication of his joy. The object of his affection rested in his arms in a state of listless happiness, listening with enchanted ear to his wild and impassioned eloquence, and careless of all other sight or sound.

She, too, had renounced her morning vows,`and the convent was unthought of and forgotten. Crossing the mountains by wild and unfrequented paths, they took up their abode in a deserted cottage, formerly frequented by goat-herds and the hunters of the roe. On looking down, for the last time, from the mountain top, on that delightful valley in which she had so long lived in innocence and peace, the lady thought of her departed mother, and her heart would have died within her, but the wild glee of the brother again rendered her

insensible to all other sensations, and she yielded to the sway of her fatal passion.

"There they lived, secluded from the world, and supported even through evil by the intensity of their passion for each other. The turbulent spirit of the brother was at rest-he had found a being endowed with virtues like his own, and, as he thought, destitute of all his vices. The day-dreams of his fancy had been realized, and all that he had imagined of beauty, or affection, was embodied in that form which he could call his own.

"On the morning of her departure the dreadful truth burst upon the mind of her wretched husband. From the first arrival of the dark-eyed stranger, a gloomy vision of future sorrow had haunted him by day and by night. Despair and misery now made him their victim, and that awful malady which he inherited from his ancestors was the immediate consequence. He was seen, for the last time, among some stupendous cliffs which overhung the river, and his hat and cloak were found by the chamois hunters at the foot of an ancient pine.

"Soon, too, was the guilty joy of the survivors to terminate. The gentle lady, even in felicity, felt a load upon her heart. Her spirit had burned too ardently, and she knew it must, ere long, be extinguished. Day after day the lily of her cheek encroached upon the rose, till at last she assumed a monumental paleness, unrelieved save by a transient and hectic glow. Her angelic form wasted away, and soon the flower of the valley was no more.

The soul of the brother was dark, dreadfully dark, but his body wasted not, and his spirit caroused with more fearful strength. The sounding cataract haunted him like a passion.' He was again alone in the world, and his mind endowed with more dreadful energies. His wild eye sparkled with unnatural light, and his raven hair hung heavy on his burning temples. He wandered among the forests and the mountains, and rarely entered his once-beloved dwelling, from the win

dows of which he had so often beheld the sun sinking in a sea of crimson glory.

"He was found dead in that same pass in which he had met his sister among the mountains; his body bore no marks of external violence, but his countenance was convulsed by bitter insanity."-Blackwood's Magazine.

THE DYING WORDS OF ELIZABETH WELLINGTON,

An unfortunate woman who was found under a hayrick, in a field near the great north road between London and Edinburgh.

Ir was in one of the bitter nights during the severe winter of the year seventeen hundred and ninety-four, that the passengers of a stage-coach travelling to the north, were alarmed by groans which seemed to proceed from a field adjoining to the road.

The coachman could not be prevailed on to stop till he reached the top of a hill, which he was at the moment ascending; he then agreed that if something was given him to drink, he would wait while they went to see from whence the groans proceeded.

The travellers immediately alighted, and the guard, taking one of the coach lamps in his hand, walked back with them into the field; their search for some time was vain, but approaching a hay-rick at which cattle were feeding, a groan more feebly uttered again was heard following the sound, they were at once interested and distressed by the object presented to their view.

Lying at length under shelter of the rick, in a dark and dismal night, apparently exhausted by hunger, fatigue, and cold, thinly clothed, with a form and countenance which had once been pleasing, they discovered a female, almost frozen to death.

After gently raising her head, and rubbing her claycold limbs till a little warmth was perceived, they conveyed down her throat, with some difficulty, a small