seeing it suddenly drop from the skies into his lap.

"Jane," said William, "you seem as much pleased as a child with a new toy; yet the sea is not to be joked with. Though there is only a little ripple on it now, I have seen a swell that frightened the best seaman on board; and many a hundred-ay, many a thousand ships, with all their crews, have gone to the bottom, smooth as you may think it atop. I must tell you some stories of shipwrecks, that you may not fancy it all plain sailing, and may be willing to go back home, away from the surf."

"You need not," said Jane; "I heard plenty such stories from my mother, and I have not forgotten one of them. Besides, the woman with the green hair, who appeared to my grandfather, is dreadful enough."

"The woman with the green hair!" said William, suddenly. "Who saw that? who told you of it?"

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My grandfather saw it twice, and my mother told me of it. He used to make voyages to Holland and Germany, I think, for I remember my mother showing me the places in our old map. Once he had not long left the port, somewhere abroad, when the fog began to thicken round him, and the wind, at the same time, to rise. The sailors wanted him to turn back, but he would not, for he was a very bold and obstinate man. The weather grew worse and worse; and at last, when he had just refused the advice of all on board to go back into harbour, he saw a figure rise out of the water on the side nearest the wind, and float in the air against the fog, close to the mast. She put out her hands, as if to push him and his ship back, and he noticed her so well that he could describe her as he could any of his friends. She was young and handsome, in a long grey dress, with pale green hair hanging down over her neck. My grandfather would not heed, and that night his ship was dashed upon the shore, and he lost every thing he had; all his crew were drowned, and he was thrown upon the beach himself, almost a corpse."

"Well," said William, "was that all? did he ever see her again?"

"Yes. For some years after this he made successful voyages, and he spoke to his family of the sight he had scen as of something strauge and re

markable, but not as if it had been of any real importance. My mother had heard him describe the figure so often, that she said she felt as if she had seen it herself. After she had been married for some months, she went with her husband to pay her father a visit, before he should sail on what he intended should be his last voyage. He had laid out most of his property in a cargo for the vessel, and expected to make a great deal of money by it. The evening before he was to sail, he was returning from the harbour to the house he lived in, a mile or two out of Southport. The way lay along the sea-side, and it was a beautiful summer evening, with a slight sunny mist spread over the water. After he had got clear of the town, he turned round to look at the masts of his ship, which were plain enough to be seen, and he noticed an odd movement, with some faint lines in the sunshine, above the water. It grew clearer and clearer, till he saw that it was the woman with the green hair. He could have thought it not an hour since he last saw her, so exactly was she the same, except that now a weak yellow brightness from the sun fell over her grey dress and pale green hair. She waved her hand and looked at him, so that he understood well enough that she warned him not to go back to the ship. At first, he owned, he was dreadfully frightened, but as she did not cease her warnings, he turned his head from her and proceeded on his way. He did not dare look back again till he had struck into a path that led down a hollow, so that the sea was hidden from him. There was then no appearance of the figure. He came home much changed in his manner, and his face and voice were very sad when he told his wife and daughter what had happened to him. But he could not afford to give up his voyage; and, besides, he would not have borne to be laughed at by his friends, as he must have been had he staid on shore for such a reason."

"And what came of it?"

"My mother never saw him after the next morning, when he went to sea. He was washed overboard and drowned before the eyes of his crew. I was born three or four months after, and my mother was so affected by her loss, and by the story of the greenhaired woman, that she thought the

impression made on her had given me the same kind of features and look as those of the appearance described by my grandfather. My hair, indeed, has never that I know of been green.' William was long silent, and at last he said, "Jane, I must tell you what I am thinking of. I heard this story told by an old sailor of Southport, who said he had sailed in the ship, the master of which was lost as you have just related, though I had no notion that he was your grandfather. But I have seen the green-haired woman twice myself. I was in the Mediterranean, and was the mate keeping watch on deck. The night was cloudy, but every now and then we had a good glimpse of moonshine. The moon, however, was hidden when I happened to be looking towards the larboard bow, and I saw, right abreast of the foremast, hanging against the clouds, the sort of figure you spoke of, with her green hair falling about her. Her body and dress seemed much the colour of the clouds behind, so that I could not make out her shape, but just then a flash of moonshine came, and I saw her as plain as I see you. She seemed, as you said, to be signing to us to change our course. I called one of the seamen to try if he could notice any thing in the direction in which I saw her, but at the moment of his turning his head she disappeared. I tried to think no more of it, and an hour after a Greek pirate came up and boarded us with a dozen men; we had to fight for it hand to hand, and lost three lives before we got rid of the scoundrels, and I got a wound in my shoulder that I feel even yet. Now, it is strange that the course the figure signed to us to steer, would, as we found the next day, have taken us clear away from the pirate into the midst of the British squadron of men-of-war. But there is something more curious than this. You say your mother thought you had taken after the build of the figure from her hearing it spoken of by her father; now, when I saw you the first time that morning up yonder at the lover's

seat, the first thing that struck me was -Well that girl is the likest I ever saw to the green-haired woman. Your hair even had a little greenish look, though that, perhaps, was from the shade of the old thorn-tree above you. I have never since been able to get it out of my head that you and she are somehow sisters, though I never saw two sisters so much alike.

Jane laughed, not very heartily, and owned it was strange that he as well as her mother should have noticed the likeness. "But you spoke," she said, "of seeing this figure twice. How did it happen the second time?"

"Oh! that was much less remarkable. My old captain made my fortune by promoting me to be a mate, and getting me some education. Soon afterwards he gave up the ship, and as he was walking home from the town, I went half-a-mile or so with him to bid him good by; I was thanking him for his kindness, when he said he wanted no thanks, but he would be glad if I would promise him one thing, and this was, that if ever, by any chance, he went to sea again, I would sail with him. I was looking up in his face, and was saying, Yes, when I saw over his shoulder, above a clump of trees on the top of the down where it looks along the sea, the same figure of the green-haired woman. It was bright sunshine, and I saw her quite plainly. She was frowning and making signs to me as if to prevent me from promising; but I was not to be stopped so easily, and I gave the old man my word I would go with him immediately on his letting me know, unless I should have taken a berth in another ship beforehand."

"And would you go now, that you are married?"

"To be sure I would-I must. Why, what harm should happen to you when I am away? And we should be all the better pleased with each other on my return after a four or five months' voyage. But I don't think there is much chance of it, for the old man has made his fortune, and is not likely to spend it."

The husband and wife returned in a few days from the sea-coast to their inland farm, and time passed on quietly

with them until their son was born. Young Richard, for so he was named, after his maternal grandfather, was a

new happiness to both the parents. William, too, had grown tolerably familiar with rural occupations, and was pleased with the cultivation of his land. It was now again midsummer, and the village, with its fields and trees, looked as beautiful as when Jane set out on her first expedition to the sea. But how different were now her feelings! It seemed to her as if in some mysterious way she had, in William, married the sea itself, and her restless fancies were all quieted. But this calm was not to last. It was a bright July evening, and William had come in from the fields, and was sitting down to his meal with his wife, who was preparing the table, while he danced the child upon his knee, when the postman came to the door with a letter, which, from the rarity of the occurrence, startled them as if it had been a gunshot fired into the room. The father turned pale when he saw the handwriting, and laid the child on, the floor. It was, as he expected, a letter from his old captain, saying that he had lost his fortune by an unsuccessful speculation, and was now about to embark again on a voyage to Brazil, in which he claimed William's promised help as chief mate of the ship. He saw at once that he must go. Jane spent the evening and most of the night in weeping, while he endeavoured to explain to her his wishes as to her mode of life in his absence, and the measures she should take for the management of the farm, which, with her active rural habits, did not promise to be a very difficult business. The next morning, at day-break, he started from Meadham, on his way to Southport, and Jane and her child were left to cheer each other as they might.

The autumn and winter passed on, and with the spring she had the hope of again seeing her husband. But not so was it to be. The spring brightened into summer, but William came not with the leaves and crops. The summer advanced to maturity, but the husband of Jane did not come to reap his harvest. She could no longer endure the sight of Meadham, and as the sea-side cottage was now again untenanted, she resolved to remove thither, as if, in being nearer the sea, she should be nearer to William. She intrusted her farm to a labourer on whom she could rely, and

went with her child to live upon the strange and inhospitable shore. For some weeks she would spend hours in looking over the sea, and watching every vessel; but she grew weary of this habit, and devoted herself to her son. He was growing into a vigorous and lively child, and his likeness to his father perpetually reminded her of the husband she had lost. Her talk with the boy related almost entirely to the life and exploits of seamen, and she seemed to devote him from his infancy to the task of one day following and recovering his parent. Nothing gave her so much pleasure as to see him mingle with the fishermen and their children, and so partly prepare himself for his future life. Once, indeed, she returned to Meadham for a few days, in order to arrange the affairs of the farm, and took Richard with her. But the delight with which he beheld the inland cultivation, the large trees, the green and yellow fields, and the comparative comfort and spaciousness of the farm-house, so alarmed his mother, that she never let him return there for more than a few hours. Gradually he came to consider the sea as his inevitable destination, and to share in her superstition that if he but sailed on a distant voyage, he could not fail to find his father. He was about eight years old when he begged to be allowed to accompany one of the fishermen in his voyage to Southport (where was the market for his fish) and back to the fishing village-an expedition which would last in all probability only a day. He departed in all the joyousness of childhood, and his mother, who had clothed him in a new dress, like that of a full-grown seaman, and not like that of a fisherman, saw the boat set sail with her son on board, as happily as if he had been going to his wedding. But while her eyes were still fixed on it, and before it had gained twenty yards from the beach, she discovered, sitting beside the mast, and as it were pushing the child towards the land, the grey figure of a woman with long green hair. She could not be mistaken; it was distinctly visible against the dark red sail; Jane sank back on the shingle, pointing towards it with her outstretched hand. After a long delay, she found strength to regain her home, and spent the whole day at the win

dow which overlooked the sea, with her eyes fixed on the point of the headland round which the fishing-boat would first come in sight. It was a clear and glowing evening close upon sunset, when the dark sail crept into view, and looked a spot of blood in the bright and glassy expanse lighted up by the sun, now setting behind the down from which Jane had first beheld the sea. She now watched the boat that bore her only child-she hardly observed any of the other sails that glided over the waters, most of them at a greater distance than the one she eyed so fixedly. Among these was a square rigged vessel coming from the north into the bay, with coals for the neighbouring population, and pressing on, anxious to save the tide for unloading, so as to leave the unprotected beach on the following morning. Jane knew nothing of this, but as she continued to observe the boat while it drew on, and the ship advanced in a converging line, and both were hardly now more than a mile away from her, by some mismanagement on both sides, the boat was run down. It upset on the instant, and Jane could distinguish one of the two men who were in it clinging to a rope flung from the ship. What became of the other lives she could not see. But for her the event was enough. Connected with her husband's history, and the appearance in the morning, the accident spoke plainly to her mind. After the first horror, she sat motionless with stiffened eyes, till the ship took the ground, when, perhaps, with some miserable revival of hope, she ran out of the house towards it. The first person she met was the rescued fisherman, who shook his head and dropped his hand before she reached him--she sat down on the beach, stooped her forehead on her knees, and asked him no questions. Before an hour some of the neighbouring women had gathered round her. At last one of them ventured to address her, and taking courage from her silence, lifted her up in her arms; she made no resistance, but walked quickly to her home. Only on their attempting to lay her on her bed she turned fiercely away, and sat down at the window from which she had witnessed the destruction of the boat.

The women found they could make

no change in her determination, for she only answered them by requests that they would leave her to herself. They at last complied, and she remained alone at her open lattice in the deepening twilight. Through it was to be seen the line of coast to the right, with the black ship lying at a quarter of a mile from her, beset with men and waggons engaged in unloading the coals. The shore beyond stretched away in a dark line terminated by the headland, round which she had seen the boat disappear in the morning and again return scarcely two hours ago; she fixed her eyes upon the water between this promontory and her, and saw them far in the night gradually brighten beneath the moon. It was after midnight when she discerned, in this trembling radiance, a hazy speck hovering above the waves, and as she gazed more earnestly, it became the woman with the preter-human hair, who was again distinctly marked, and looking mournfully at her. A dark mass seemed rolling before her in the water, and as she and it drew close to the shore, the expression of the seawoman's face became so piteous, that Jane got up and went to the edge of the water, where, driven at that instant on the shingle, lay the body of her son. She lifted it from the waves, and sat down on the beach with the cold and heavy corpse upon her knees; it was dressed in the new blue clothes which she had made for him with so much pleasure after the model of those worn by his father. The water from them covered her with moisture, over which at last the warm tears fell down, while she felt the dead unresisting limbs and looked on the pale face and staring eyes. The dark brown hair, indeed, still hung about the forehead, dripping with the brine, and showing none of the curls which she had so of ten handled. All else seemed changed, but by long gazing she could still recognise, in the moonshine, the fair boyish features, and lips that never more would smile on her. She could not bear the horny stare of the eyes, and she gently closed the lids before she lifted the body, and walked with it to her home. When there, she called for no help of her neighbours, but laid it on the little grass-plot, while she went and struck a light. She again lifted the burthen and laid it on her own bed, in which her boy had always

slept. She took off the clothes, washed away the sand and salt, stretched him, as if in sleep, where he had been used to lie, and then threw herself beside the senseless clay, and pressed it to her bosom. Passionate grief, and floods of tears followed, and then again she lay exhausted and helpless, till her returning strength broke out anew in bursts of misery; at last she was motionless as the corpse itself, and almost equally lifeless. And while in this state, with her moveless arms hanging round the body, a stranger, in the first grey of the dawn, entered the house, the door of which was unfastened, and saw by the sickly expiring light, the spectacle of the mother and her dead child. At first he started and shuddered, but soon began to gaze steadily on the pair, till, gathering conviction, he exclaimed, "Jane, Jane, can this be you?"

She raised herself slowly and silently in the bed from beside her child, and looked at the speaker. A minute passed before she cried aloud," William, I have killed our boy." It was indeed William, returned a broken and haggard man. They spent the following hours in such melancholy

talk as became their condition. Jane learned that her husband's vessel had been wrecked on the coast of South America; that he and one or two others had escaped, but had been long detained in the interior, partly by the whites, partly among the Indians; had made several unsuccessful attempts to reach Europe, and only now, after eight years' absence, had arrived in England in a vessel from Monte Video. He had landed at Southport, and hastened to the fishing village, which was hardly out of his road to Meadham, and where he expected to hear some intelligence of his wife and child.

The corpse was borne in its coffin on the shoulders of the fishermen along the path to Meadham, for the cartroad went many miles round. William and Jane walked together behind the bearers up the down, and past the lover's seat where they had first met, and along the whole track on which that summer morning she had been supported by his arm while returning to her father's house. His hair was now grey, but hers was white as

snow.