ON the morning succeeding that day on which Alonzo was taken captive to the rendezvous of the tories, Margaret, coming in to discharge her accustomed duties, was observed by her watchful mistress to be laboring under an extraordinary distress of mind.

Her eyes were swollen and red, and her cheeks marked by traces of recent tears.

"What ails you, Margaret ?" inquired the uneasy prisoner.

"Noffin," was the smothered reply.

"But something is the matter with you! How came your eyes so red and your countenance disturbed, if something has not happened to mar your peace of mind?"

"You can't do me any good, if I tell you," said

Margaret, laying down her work and bursting into tears.

"Oh! yes I can, perhaps. Let me know what it is, and I will help you all I can."

"I know that, Miss Haly, I know that, but you can't do me any good now."

66

Why not as well now as any time?"

"Because-because-I ought to have taken your 'vice, then I would be happy now."

"What have you done, Margaret?"

"O Miss Haly! the Captain abused me last night, and told me that I was a fool to think that he would ever marry me; and when I told him that he promised to do it, he said I was a liar, and struck me in the mouth! O Miss Haly! what shall I do, what shall I do ?"

"Forget that you ever loved him; something that you ought to have done long before this!"

"O Miss Haly! I can't do that. I-"

"What! not forget a person who has treated you so badly, who cares nothing for you, who beats you like a dog?"

"I can't help it, Miss Haly; but I must love him." "Then I shall care nothing for you," said Mahalinda. Margaret held her head down, and wept in silence. This was a serious moment in her existence. She loved Mahalinda, and would freely have given her own life for that of her captive mistress; but the furious passion, the ignorantly-indulged-in affection for the Captain, had taken such a firm hold, that the time had gone by in which the spell might have been broken.

"Miss Haly," said the poor wretch, after a while, "Miss Haly, you will see me no more after this day; but before I go I will do something for you that will make you remember me as long as you live. I must go now, for if I stay here I shall get weak; I am strong now-so farewell!"

While speaking these words her eyes were dry, and such a determination sat upon her countenance as to cause Mahalinda to shudder.

"Where are you going?", But the good voice of the prisoner reached not the ears of her servant-she was gone.

Having so much to preöccupy her mind concerning her own and her father's condition, and believing that Margaret's wildness proceeded from a mere freak of an ungovernable temper, and would quickly subside, she soon thought no more of the matter.

As the shades of evening came on apace, a heavy mist hung down about the lonely isle. The "Will-withthe-wisp" danced from tree-top to tree-top, terrifying the unenlightened minds of the islanders, while ocean roamed along the strand in hollow tones, making more impressive the sadness of an evening presaging a stormy morrow.

Groups of tories could be seen here and there, chatting in low voices, doubtless making remarks upon the state of the weather, or the progress of the war in which they were engaged.

Presently a young man came walking up to one of those companies, and was accosted in the following

manner:

"Hallo, Bill! they say that you and old Vansant

had a real wild-goose-chase after that gal what was in company with the young man that the Captain took."

"And sorry runners ye were too," observed an older-looking man than the others. "Why, there's not a woman in all his majesty's provinces that can hout-run me, even with sixty and five years on my back."

"It is much easier to talk about some things than to do them," said Bill.

"Hush, hush," cried half a dozen voices at the same time. "Any body knows that a' umman can't run faster than a cow, and who's here what can't houtrun a cow!"

Bill thought it was to his advantage not to say any thing else, so he held down his head, as if to signify that he felt the force of the rebuke, and they were perfectly satisfied.

"The young fellow what yo cotch was very saucy, wasn't he?" resumed the first speaker.

"Well, yes, he did talk rather big; thinks I, the Cap will give him a side-winder if he don't hold in; but he kinder thought that it was best to shut up, and he did so."

Thus they passed the time, until ten or eleven o'clock, when they retired, one by one, to put on dry clothes and sleep away the dreariness of the night, leaving only a sentinel to guard the prison-doors.

To and fro he walked, while the darkness of midnight, thick and black, gathered around him, and the eastern gale began to sigh deeper and deeper, until it howled loudly through the pine-tree boughs, and the

rain beat so hard that the obedient guard trembled and shook with cold. All, save that lone man, were housed as comfortably as possible, sleeping the night

away.

Did I say all? were watchful. her father?

It was

Ah! there was another whose eyes Was it Mahalinda? No. Was it No. Was it Alonzo? No. Margaret, the poor, deceived, the wronged, the ruined Margaret Doughty. And, why was not poor Margaret slumbering also? What fatality had seized upon her, that she should be creeping about in the rain and darkness at so late an hour, this stormy night.

Reader, she was fulfilling her promise and verifying her last words to her mistress. The sentinel has discontinued his march, and now stands in front of the hovel in which Upshire and Alonzo are confined. A shadow unperceived steals softly up behind him. He hears a stealthy footstep-he wheels around-the words "Who's th-" are on his lips-a knife, guided by a vigorous though a woman's arm, pierces his bosom, and he falls without a groan a lifeless corpse, suffused in human gore.

With quick, noiseless steps, Margaret hastens to force the prison-door. The fastening is on the outside. The work is but that of a moment, and she gropes her way in.

Feeling gently about, she soon finds one of the sleeping inmates, cuts the cords that binds his arms, whispers, "You are free!" then flying out, leaves the door ajar and Alonzo on his feet.

Falling over the dead body of her murdered victim,