sister, the young sailor hurried down to the quay, where the Jeannette was preparing to lift her anchor, explained in a few incoherent words that his father's absence was occasioned by illness, and commenced with more than usual activity his duties of the day.

Pierre Romeny's place was instantly filled by an able mariner from among the numerous hands wanting work in weather so unpropitious: and the kind-hearted captain of the Jeannette, believing in the pretext of his indisposition, would fain have dispensed with the services of the boy, that he might attend upon his father. But little Pierre stood firm. Aware that his exertions were likely to become valuable to his mother, he refused to return home; and seemed to take pride in the idea of his first cruise, emancipated from the instructions of his father. Poor Françoise, who had followed him to the port, after watching the Jeannette pitch her way out of harbour, knelt down with a heavy heart at the foot of the cross to implore a blessing upon the boy-her joy, her comfort. She dared not even to the ear of Heaven avow that he was her only comfort left on earth.

A severe chastisement awaited her maternal partiality. Towards afternoon, a heavy squall arose. By the time the lighthouse sent forth its warning brightness, the waves ran so high, and the darkness of the night was so terrible, that it surprised no

one when the turn of the tide brought in only one of three fishing-smacks which had ventured out. The Jeannette was evidently unable to make the harbour!

All that night did Françoise Romeny pass upon the jetty, drenched to the skin, chilled to the very marrow of her bones, praying, raving, despairing. Morning came at last, and brought no comfort; for, by the grey lurid light of an equinoctial dawn, she saw the wreck of the Jeannette stranded off Fort Rouge. It was not, however, till evening that the body of the only individual missing among her crew was washed ashore. The clamorous rejoicings of the wives whose husbands had been spared drowned the faint cry of the poor mother, when a dark object, entangled in seaweed, was snatched by the wreckers from the waves, and deposited upon her knees.

My boy, my murdered boy!" burst from the lips of the distracted woman (convinced that, had his father been at his post, the life of the lad would have been preserved like those of his young comrades)—" the curse of God be upon the drunkard who sent thee forth to struggle with the storm, while indulging in vice and cowardly idleness on shore !"

In her distraction, Françoise saw not that the unhappy father stood beside her, with his eyes fixed upon the livid body of the child-be

C

wildered, desperate, and destined from that awful moment to a species of sullen idiocy, the consequence of a shock received after the excitement of ardent spirits.

But for the tenderness of her surviving child, Françoise Romeny would probably have sunk under the pressure of this double affliction. Anxiety for the living served, however, to tranquillise the violence of her sorrow for the dead. She soon began to accuse herself as the origin of her husband's affliction, and devote herself heroically to its alleviation. Apprehensive that Pierre might be moved, by some sudden impulse of remorse, to an act of desperation, she resolved never to leave his side when he took up his daily station upon the spot where the poor boy's body was rescued from the waves. There they used to sit, those heart-broken parents, stricken with heavy affliction; their bread bitter, their souls despairing, till it came to be accounted a bad omen when the faces of the Romenys were the first objects that greeted the foreign traveller, or the last which the crew of a vessel noticed upon shore. The gulls seemed to flit over their heads, regarding them no more than the spars and timbers among which they loitered away the day, watching for the return of the Jeannette, which Pierre Romeny fondly persisted would one day bring back their living, breathing, promising bright-faced boy-the loving boy whom he had smitten- the dutiful boy

whom he had allowed to meet unprotected the perils of the midnight storm.

But they are watchers no longer. The repentant father is lying beside his victim in the cemetery of Calais: and Françoise the inmate of her daughter, now a happy wife and mother. It is some consolation to her gray hairs that, among the young ones crowding to her knees, there is a little blue-eyed Pierre, in whose behalf her intercessions to Heaven are blended with many a faithful tribute to the memory of the dead!—

SONG.

BY MISS E. SCAIFE.

Night, with her starry eyes
Of lustrous glory,
Is gleaming from the skies

On ruin hoary;

On ruin and on river,

Gently flowing

Through scenes with beauty ever
Brightly glowing.

Lo! where the mountain shades

Are frowning grimly;

Lo! where the nut-wood glades

Are shining dimly;

Lo! every pleasant scene

That once delighted,

Not chang'd, as we have been,
Not chang'd nor blighted!

And yet we are not old;

Our hearts are true, love,
Our feelings are not cold,
Not cold nor few, love.
And though we wept the tears
Of early sadness,

The chastening of those years
Has brought forth gladness.

Peace with her heavenward gaze
At last has found us.
The dawn of brighter days

Has gather'd round us;
Mercies long sought in vain.
Have now descended;
Our sun has risen again,
Our night has ended.

Bliss, that is born of truth,
And grateful feelings;

And hope, whose endless youth

Has bright revealings ;

And love, the fruit of faith,

That wavereth never,

Are our's, are our's till death,

Are our's for ever!