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"Have I deserved to be murdered?"

"Have I forfeited my life to be duped?" "Part them-for God's sake, part them! cried the shuddering, the forgiving, Lucy.

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She spoke too late. A heavy plunge in the water announced that they had parted of themselves, and that Carrol had made the attempt to escape by swimming.

"A light! a light!" cried Walters, rushing back to the room, and vanishing with a brand from the fire. Nothing would suit him but extermination, and we followed to withhold him, attended by the few alarmed and forlorn domestics, amongst whom was the decrepid old man of the Lock.

"It is useless," said he-" useless to think of swimming through this slime to the towingpath. The boat! the boat!"

All the boats we could find were immediately pushed off with lights-Walters being with difficulty restrained from pursuing his vengeance to the last. It was very dark and foggy, and the brands and the lanterns only threw their glare to the distance of a few feet. We watched their dim meteor-like courses to

and fro, without success, for a breathless half hour. At last, one of the lights stopped, and a shout informed us that Carrol was found. A few moments more, and the boat glided slowly towards the shore-the two who had gone forth with it gazing with fixed horror at the burthen which lay at the bot

tom.

When we came to behold, there was indeed a frightful sight, not the less thrilling from the unexpected performance of a sentence which I had often sportively pronounced to be the most appropriate. Stark stiff, and scarcely to be distinguished from the filth of the morass, the body of Carrol bore witness that his soul had passed away to a land whither his speculations had tended but too little. To lament was impossible. We could but turn shuddering away, and trust fervently that such punishment might be sufficient to efface the guilt which had led to it.

I looked round to see if the resentment of Walters had ceased with that of the weeping Lucy and myself, but he was gone. Having no longer his rage to support him, the shame

of his discomfiture had doubtless rendered him unable to sustain our presence. He had stepped into one of the boats, and escaped in the midst of our consternation; and the justice which pursued him was eluded equally. I never heard of him but once afterwards, and that was in a newspaper account of his having landed at New York.

In a few weeks from this time, the visions of Lucy's young ambition were realized. She became the mistress of her mother's home-the blissful guardian of smiles which she had despaired of again beholding; and, if she lavished the reflection of them upon one who knew not how to deserve her, she was contented to think that what was wanting in merit was amply made up in boundless devotion.

THE PIC-NIC.

I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen.

BURNS.

"WHAT on earth," I exclaimed, on the hottest of the dog days, 66 can move mortal men and women to leave their lemonade and ices behind their cool veranda-blinds and toil through pigeon-pies on the top of a hill in such a Phonix-frying sun as this?"

Such was the mood in which I received an invitation to a pic-nic party, in which, nevertheless, I was enlisted in spite of myself. I would not have it supposed, however, that the reasoning of man could have brought me to this impious defiance of Apollo's wrath.-No; the tempter was in petticoats-and such a one!-I was sitting in the draft between two windows

With outstretch'd legs, loose neckcloth, fluttering frill,
Fanning my bosom with my tailor's bill-

I beg pardon for the poetry, but when I think

of that dark-eyed maid my pen always runs riot—I was sitting with two tumblers before me, the one containing lemonade, the other camomile tea, which I sipped alternately for the more complete enjoyment of their sweets and bitters, when she overwhelmed me by demanding-"Is it true you are not going with us ?"

There is something to me so bewitching in the graceful bend of maiden symmetry, something so persuasive in the blush and the smile of a naturally pale and pensive countenance, something so totally irresistible in the soft tone which is struggling with reluctant bashfulness I see how it will be-I shall be at my rhymes again presently-" Go with you!" cried I-"ay, to the world's end!—how shall we travel?"

"There are three jaunting cars," replied my beauty, "and there are only eighteen of us, and there are only five gentlemen, twelve others having excused themselves in consideration of their complexions, and we have only fifteen miles to go, and we shall only be out nine or ten hours." I could not help gasping

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