frame was growing thinner, his face looked more sickly, and his nerves were in such a state, that he could not lift his brandy to his lips without spilling half of it. The young girls ceased to carry on their little wars of wit with him, and looked serious; and the village beaux, who had formerly, with some reason, cast a jealous eye upon him, were heard to grumble out, that they feared poor Arnaut was in a bad way. When I talked of medical advice, he laughed bitterly, filled another bumper, and said that nothing was the matter.

Mary was a subject seldom touched upon, and it was not till two months after her departure, that he expressed a wonder that none of her friends had heard from her. Was it likely that her marriage could have been broken off? We were discoursing upon the matter one morning, when the post came in. Arnaut opened the newspaper, shuddered, and threw himself back in his chair-Mary had been married two days.

Neither of us spoke for a considerable time; I knew not what to say. He drew himself close to the fire, and his teeth chattered as if he were freezing. His senses seemed chilled and torpid, and the few desperate attempts which he made to speak, were composed of words without meaning, or relating to a chaos of subjects, which jostled each other like the cross-readings of a newspaper. Yet amidst it all, I saw a manly endeavour to overcome the impropriety and inutility of his feelings. He had, evidently, some vague plan of amendment, and, as he sat shuddering, with his elbows on his knees, and his knuckles pressed into his temples, he muttered about change of air, and change of scene, and asked me where we should go. Before I could answer, his lips were quivering withMary-husband-marriage—and again he would fly off to his affairs, remember that he had strangely neglected them

since Mary went, ring the bell for his servant, write a cheque upon his banker, date it wrong, write another, and sign the name of Mary. He persevered till the task was accomplished; then begged me to go round the village and take leave for him, and began to write a letter to Mary. He knew not what he was about, for when he had finished the first line, I left his pen wandering unconsciously over the table.

It was now the month of December, and the snow was knee-deep. I could not help remarking the contrast between this day and the first of my visit. My heart was then full of careless curiosity; the trees were in their loveliest green, the heavens were shining, and the birds were singing; now, the skies were black, the branches were desolate and covered with rime, and the songsters sat shivering on them with muffled feathers and drooping wings tame, spiritless, and well-nigh famished. For myself, I can truly say, that my feelings had changed no less than the season. Arnaut had treated me like a brother, and I could have wept for him like a woman. I found every one at home, and every one sorry. I was loaded with a thousand kind messages for my friend, and as many good-wishes for myself, and was detained from home three or four hours. When I returned, I was told that Arnaut had finished his letter, and had gone out for a little air, with his dog and gun. I thought it likely that he was gone into a wood hard by, and I strolled after him, not without uneasiness at his being left to his own guidance. The sun had found his way through the mist, and it was a beautiful afternoon. The little feathery clouds looked like strips from the rainbow, and the snow and the icicles glittered with unimaginable hues. The red light that streamed down the long vistas of the wood, or rather forest, catching renewed brilliancy from the gray bark of the oaks

and huge beech-trees, showed me far down Arnaut's favourite haunts; but I could see neither dog nor man. I penetrated farther, and called, and afterwards fired my gun, that he might (as had often been the case when we lost each other) return the signal; but I heard nothing, only the heavy flight and clamour of the rooks which were scared from their perch. He must, surely, I thought, be gone home, and I returned, but he was not there.

The night came on with the howling of wind, and every thing appeared dismal and death-like. The servants mustered all the lanterns they could find, and distributed themselves various ways through the forest. I, myself, sought a new track, and, holding my light to the snow, discovered the trace of footsteps. I could have sworn to Arnaut's foot, and I bounded impetuously onward. Sometimes I lost the track, again I found it, and was off like a blood-hound, shouting all the way for my companions. The snow, however, began to whirl through the bare branches with blinding impetuosity, and soon filled up the foot-prints. We were all at fault, and stood shivering together with fear and cold, uncertain how to proceed. Time after time, the men took turns to run home, but all came back without intelligence. Inquiries had been made at every house, and the consternation was universal. I scarcely know how the night passed away, my mind was so strangely agitated; I only remember that once or twice, in the intervals of the blast, something was heard like the howling of a dog, but each of us fancied it in a different direction, and toiled after it to no purpose. At last, the storm abated; our lights burnt paler, and a cold blue streak announced the approach of day; after awhile, it expanded and broke into clouds, which sailed along like icebergs in a Polar sea.

We pursued our search with unabaiting vigour; moving

like men of frost-our clothes absolutely rattling and cracking as we went; till once more we heard the sound which had baffled our inquiries in the night. It was now beyond a doubt the wild wailing of a dog; and the stillness which had succeeded the storm enabled us all to agree as to the point from whence it proceeded. My heart beat with a sensation of real bodily anguish; and, as we scrambled midway in snow for nearly a quarter of a mile, not one of us had breath to speak a word. The first sentence that was uttered was, "There is his gun!" It was leaning against the stem of a tree. I snatched it up, and discovered that it had never been loaded-an appalling proof of the state of mind in which he had left home. In a moment a

faint whimpering directed my eyes a few steps farther, and there lay the favourite setter, curled up and unable to rise. He had placed himself under what at first appeared to be the snow-clad stump of a tree. I looked upon it a second time, and cried aloud with horror. It was Arnaut himself. He sat upon a piece of broken bank, his hands clasped between his knees, and his head sunk upon his bosom. My first impulse was to seize him by the arm, but his frame was rigid as iron. His eyes were open, his brow knitted, and his teeth clenched, and his whole countenance exhibited an expression of sullen despair; but the feeling of it was gone. He had sat down in the anguish of his heart, and the pains of the flesh were trifles insufficient to warn him of their existence. The hours of storm and midnight had passed like sounds to the deaf or sights to the blind, and death had imperceptibly borne him away to his rest!

The remembrance of our petrified group as it shuddered round this dismal spectacle shakes me, even at this distant period, like a dreadful nightmare. I have lain thinking of it in my bed, and struggled to awaken my

self from what I could not believe to be a reality. I have sought in vivid regions of fiction to weaken the impres sion by familiarity with horrors yet more appalling-but in vain. My fancy seems no less perpetual in its opera tions than my memory. I cannot listen to the winter blast, but I hear the lamentations of the faithful dog. I cannot look upon the landscape of snow but each laden bush and broken knoll assumes the startling appearance of despair and death. Poor, unhappy Arnaut! Sad, sad, indeed, were the hours I watched over his coffin! I saw him in his shroud. I laid Mary's ringlet next to his heart, and I buried him in the little village church-yard, where he has received as fond a tribute of tears as ever fell upon the grave of mortal man.

Thus ends the story of Arnaut, and Mary's is not far from a close. Her beauty is decayed, her health gone, her spirit broken; and the only prize her ill-judging husband has obtained in her, is liberty to watch the progress of death, and take the last breath which will escape in blessing the memory of another.

DER FREISCHÜTZ IN ENGLAND.

MANY foreigners who have never entered England, and not a few natives who have never left it, appear to imagine that, because we are a nation very eminent in some qualities, of cthers our destiny must ever be barren. These arm-chair travellers, and virtuosi of a name, are quite geographical in their decisions on the arts; they limit genius to certain degrees of latitude and longitude; and woe to the pretender whose nativity has transgressed