of the parties if I told you. However, I think you will be glad in general to hear that a great scoundrel, and a most heartless scoundrel to boot, will get a trouncing, if some people's scruples can be got over. And I am pretty sure, too, that even without exposing those feelings to pain, it can be done. He is a ruined man to-morrow, as sure as fate!"

"Who?" I asked.

"A person," said Russell, darkening," of whom you know nothing; but a scoundrel. A month cannot pass over, without his being driven to the pistol, as an escape from the hangman. But where is Jane?"

"She left the room only as you came in."

"Pardon me-I must see her."

In a few minutes she returned, paler than Carrara marble, in company with Russell. She cast her eyes on me as if to say, "Forget our conversation," and, at Russell's request, sate down to the piano, to sing, with sweet and unfaltering voice, the romantic ballads and melodies of which he is fond, as if there were nothing in the world to agitate or distress but the poetic sorrows sung in the melting notes that thrilled from her melodious tongue.

WAYLAC.

368

PICTURES, GRAVE AND GAY.

MY SOLDIER-BOY.

VERSES FOR MUSIC BY DR. MAGINN.

I give my soldier-boy a blade,

In fair Damascus fashioned well;
Who first the glittering falchion swayed,
Who first beneath its fury fell,
I know not, but I hope to know,
That for no mean or hireling trade,
To guard no feeling base or low,
I give my soldier-boy a blade,

Cool, calm, and clear, the lucid flood,

In which its tempering work was done,

As calm, as clear, as cool of mood,
Be thou whene'er it sees the sun.
For country's claim, at honour's call,
For outraged friend, insulted maid,
At mercy's voice to bid it fall,

I give my soldier-boy a blade,

The eye which marked its peerless edge,
The hand that weighed its balanced poise,
Anvil and pincers, forge and wedge,

Are gone, with all their flame and noise-
And still the gleaming sword remains.
So when in dust I low am laid,
Remember by these heart-felt strains
I gave my soldier-boy a blade.

FINIS.