touched. Be guarded, my friend," he added, lowering his voice; "that lady's affections are not at her own disposal." A deep blush dyed the cheeks of Arthur Digby, as he hastily replied, "You need not fear for me, Annesley-I am aware of the circumstance." A pause of some minutes ensued, which was employed by the barrister in watching the varying expression of his companion's face." If the countenance be a faithful index to the mind, your thoughts must be of a melancholy cast." "It is true, my friend. The sight of that woman-I had almost forgotten common-sense, and said, that angel-recalled to my mind a very different scene, in which she was a principal actor. Not in scenes of gaiety and splendor like this did I first behold her. It is now nearly four months ago that I was summoned, in the unavoidable absence of my friend, Dr. B., to attend a family, in a neighboring square, which had been attacked with a fever of so malignant a character that it threatened imminent peril to any one bold enough to venture within the region of infection. Adversity is said to be the touchstone of friendship. The infected dwelling was abandoned by many of those who might have proved useful by a thousand little acts of kindness and attention, and the invalids were left to the mercy of strangers and hirelings. One by one, the members of that devoted household sank beneath the blasting breath of disease, scarcely less terrible than the plague. "I shall never forget the effect produced on my mind on my first visit. With difficulty I mastered the feeling of anguish with which I turned from contemplating the delirious agonies of an apparently dying father, to administer relief to three of his suffering children successively. But it was the patient, uncomplaining sufferings of a meek girl that had fallen an early victim to the fever, in its most aggravated form, that awakened all my sympathies. From the first moment that I looked upon the sharpened features and ghastly countenance of the poor sufferer, as she lay stretched on her bed in a state of death-like insensibility, I felt convinced that the fiat had gone forth -a warrant from which there was no reprieve; her hours were already numbered. She was apparently unconscious of my approach: I sometimes hope she was also unconscious of her own physical suffering, which would have been greatly augmented had she been left the power of reflecting upon its horrors. The image of this poor unfortunate haunted me incessantly; and, though fully aware that to enter her chamber-which was, in truth, the centre and focus of infection-was fraught with certain danger, I could not resist the feeling that prompted me to renew my visits. "I had hitherto seen no one but the nurse; and it was with some surprise I beheld, on entering the chamber of my patient, a lovely woman, elegantly but simply attired, leaning over the pillow of the poor invalid; with soothing gentleness endeavoring to arouse her from the death-like stupor that pervaded her frame, that she might administer the medicine which had been prescribed. There was a tenderness and sweetness in her voice and look that seemed for a moment to fix the wandering thoughts of her patient, and recall her to a sense of her own condition. She spoke not -could not speak-but her languid eye faintly smiled in thankfulness on her nurse. "The next time I beheld that noble-minded woman, she was kneeling beside the death-bed of the sufferer, with eyes raised in tearful earnestness towards that heaven whose invisible portals she prayed might be unclosed to admit the departing spirit, hovering on the brink of the ocean of eternity. Death was in the ghastly face of the dying less rigidity of death-the labored Anna, as her head sank on the bosom of her devoted nurse. Painfully conscious that every breath respired by the invalid was obnoxious to the safety of her friend, I entreated that she would allow me to uphold the drooping head of the expiring girl on my arm; but she gently repulsed me, saying she felt no apprehension of infection. 6 The mother of this dear child,' she added, while her fine expressive eyes were filled with tears, was my earliest and most beloved friend. I received her last breath, and to my care she commended her motherless children. When the freed spirit of her poor Anna shall meet her mother in the realms of light-if, indeed, it be permitted for the mother and child to meet-she will bear witness that I have faithfully performed her last request.' The dim eye of the dying Anna was for an instant lifted to the speaker's face-her pale, quivering lips essayed to speak-a faint smile-a nervous pressure of the hand, that was grasped with silent agony by her brother-was all that passed. The damp, cold hand relaxed its holdthe transient gleam of light faded from the glazed and failing eyethe lip became fixed in the motion bosom ceased to heave-the sudden stillness that ensued told that the sufferer was at rest from every earthly ill. It is impossible to look on death even in its mildest form without feeling an awe steal over the mind and senses. Never did a death-bed scene awaken more painful emotion than that which I then witnessed; and I turned from the chamber of death with a full and bursting heart. I never saw that devoted friend from that time, nor, till this very evening, could I even learn her name. I now behold her the centre of attraction, the idol of the circle in which she moves. And she-the wealthy, the talented, the lovely, happy wife-could voluntarily quit her home of luxury and wedded peace, to become an inmate of the roof where disease and death walked hand in hand-to watch beside the bed of death, and soothe the dying agonies of the child of her friend, even at the risk of her own life! Brilliant and lovely as she now appears, she looks not more beautiful in my eyes than when I last beheld her-a ministering angel, passing the spirit to its eternal home! "To win man's love, woman should be thus seen, and thus remembered!” THE DEMON SHIP-THE PIRATE OF THE MEDITERRANEAN. IT has of late been much the fashion with writers of celebrity to choose Pirates for their heroes, insomuch that many of our youth, especially of the female sex, attach an idea of romantic grandeur to the very word pirate; and I once knew a young lady who, during a sail up the Mediterranean, was kept in a state of delirious excitement by the expectation, I mean the hope, of our all being eventually captured by a Greek corsair. Not one, however, of these fascinating marauders made his appearance, and we were doomed, in visitation, I suppose, for our sins, to have an unmolested pas sage, and a safe disembarkation. To console my young friend under her acute disappointment, I showed her a little MS. which had been bequeathed to me by a relative, a Colonel Francillon, who died before pirates came into fashion, and who would as soon have thought of seeking a hero in the Newgate Calendar, among footpads or housebreakers, as among the daring robbers of the ocean. It became evident that the young lady was sufficiently struck by the contents of the manuscript to be perfectly willing to take another sail over the Mediterranean, in a quiet way, without the give piquance to the voyage. This calmed admiration of my young friend for gentlemen-thieves, induced me to afford the colonel's story an opportunity for more enlarg ed conversion of robber-lovers. I therefore give it to society with all its imperfections on its head. It will be seen, ere the conclusion of the tale, that no one can better than myself vouch for the truth of the circumstances there brought together; and it would be too trite to remark, that events often occur in real life which in fiction would be regarded as gross violations of all probability. interference of any robber chief to tary appointment to India, and yet I hesitated to accept it. There was in my native village a retired Scotch officer, for whom I had conceived a strong attachment. His daughter I had known and loved from childhood, and when this gave place to womanhood, my affection changed in kind while it strengthened in degree. Margaret Cameron was at this period seventeen, and, consequently, eight years my junior. She was young, beautiful, and spoiled by a doating parentyet I saw in her a fine natural disposition, and the seeds of many noble qualities. To both father and daughter I openly unfolded my affection. Captain Cameron, naturally, pleaded the youth of his daughter. Margaret laughed at the idea of my even entertaining a thought of her, told me I was two thousand years her senior, and declared she would as soon think of marrying an elder brother, or even her father, as myself. I listened to the assertions of Margaret with profound silence, scorned to whine and plead my cause, bowed with an air of haughty resignation, and left her. I was the only son of a widowed mother, who, though far from affluent, was not pennyless;-you will naturally suppose, therefore, I was a most troublesome, disagreeable, spoiled child. Such I might have been, but for the continual drawback on all my early gratifications, which my maternal home presented in the shape of an old dowager countess, a forty-ninth cousin of my mother's. This lady thought that she handsomely purchased a residence in our family by her gracious acknowledgment of this semi-hundredth degree of consanguinity. I believe she had been banished from the mansion of her eldest son because her talents for reproof, and his ideas of his own impeccability, in nowise harmonized to produce domestic felicity. At all events, she became an omnipresent Marplot on mine. Whatever I was doing, wherever I was going, there was she reproving, rebuking, exhorting, and all to save me from idling, or drowning, or quarreling, or straying, or a hundred etceteras. I grew up, went to school, to college -finally, into the army, and with it to Ireland; and had the satisfaction, at five-and-twenty, to hear the dowager say I was good for nothing. She was of a somewhat malicious disposition, and perhaps I did not well to make her my enemy. At this time I had the offer of a good mili When next I saw Margaret I was in a traveling dress at her father's residence. I found her alone in the garden, occupied in watering her flowers. "I am come, Margaret," I said, "to bid you farewell."—" Why, where are you going?"-"To London, to sea, to India."-" Nonsense!"-"You always think there is nonsense in truth; everything that is serious to others is a jest to you." "Complimentary this morning."-"Adieu, Margaret; may you retain through life the same heartlessness of disposition. It will preserve you from many a pang that might reach a more sensitive bosom."- "You do my strength of mind infinite honor. Every girl of seventeen can be sentimental, but there are few stoics in their teens. I love to be coldly great. You charm me."—" If heartlessness and mental superiori point of quitting my native land.— "And now, Margaret," I said, "farewell-you will scarce find in life a more devoted friend—a more ardent desirer of your happiness, than him you have driven from your side." I stretched out my hand to Margaret for a friendly farewell clasp. But she held not out hers in return; she spoke not a word of adieu. I turned an indignant countenance towards her, and, to my unutterable surprise, beheld my youthful young friend in a swoon. Now this to the cold reader sounds the very common-place of sickly romance, but it threw me into a confusion and agitation inexpressible. And was this the being I had accused of want of feeling! At that moment I felt that the world held nothing so dear to me as MargaretI felt, better still, that I was dear to her. I will not go over the tenthousand-times-trodden ground of lovers' explanations, and self-reproaches, and betrothals-we left the garden solemnly plighted to each other. But I must pass briefly over this portion of my history. I was condemned, by the will of Captain Cameron, and by the necessity of obtaining some professional promotion, to spend a few years in India before I could receive the hand of Margaret. ty are with you synonymes," I said, with gravity, "count yourself, Miss Cameron, at the very acmé of intellectual greatness, since you can take leave of one of your earliest friends with such easy indifference." -"Pooh! pooh! I know you are not really going. This voyage to India is one of your favorite threats in your dignified moments. I think, if I mistake not, this is about the twentieth time it has been made. And for early friends, and so forth, you have contrived to live within a few hundred feet of them, without coming in their sight for the last month, so they cannot be so very dear." This was said in a slight tone of pique.-"Listen to me, Margaret," said I, with a grave, and, as I think, manly dignity of bearing; "I offered you the honest and ardent, though worthless gift of a heart, whose best affections (despite your not unmarked defects of character) you entirely possessed. I am not coxcomb enough to suppose that I can at pleasure storm the affections of any woman; but I am man enough to expect that they should be denied me with some reference to the delicate respect due to mine. But you are, of course, at full liberty to choose your own mode of rejecting your suitors; only, as one who still views you as a friend, I would that that manner showed more of good womanly feeling, and less of conscious female power. I am aware, Margaret, that this is not the general language of lovers; perhaps if it were, woman might hold her power more gracefully, and even Margaret Cameron's heart would have more of greatness and generosity than it now possessWhile I spoke, Margaret turned away her lovely face, and I saw that her very neck was suffused. I began to think I had been harsh with her, to remember that she was young, and that we were about to part perhaps forever. I took her hand, assured her that the journey I had announced was no lover's ruse, and that I was really on the es." I reached my Asiatic destination long and anxiously looked for European letters-took up one day by accident an English paper, and there read "Died, at the house of Captain Cameron, in the village of A, Miss Margaret Cameron, aged eighteen." I will not here dwell on my feelings. I wrote a letter of despair to Captain Cameron, informing him of the paragraph I had read, imploring him, for the love of mercy, if possible, to contradict it, and declaring that my future path in life now lay stretched before me like one wild waste. The Countess of Falcondale answered my epistle by a deep-black-margined letter, with a sable seal as large as a saucer. My sole parent was no more ;-for Captain Cameron-he had been seized by a paralytic affection in consequence of the shock his feelings had sustained. His circumstances were in irreparable disorder, and the Countess was residing with him in order, at his earnest request, to manage all his affairs. I remitted handsomely but delicately to my old friend. The appearance of my name, about five years afterwards, among the "Marriages" in the Calcutta Gazette, was followed by successive announcements among the "Births and Deaths," in the same compendious record of life's changes. My wife perished of a malignant fever, and two infant children speedily followed her. I set out, to return over-land to my native country, a sober, steady, and partially grey-haired colonel of thirty-six. My military career had been as brilliant as my domestic path had been clouded. The habitual complexion of my mind, however, was gravity—a gravity which extended itself to my countenance, and there assumed even a shade of melancholy. Yet I was a disappointed, not discontented, man; and my character had, I trust, undergone some changes for the better. I arrived at a port of the Levant, and thence took ship for Malta, where I landed in safety. At this period the Mediterranean traders were kept in a state of perpetual alarm by the celebrated "DEMON SHIP." Though distinguished by the same attractive title, she in nowise resembled the phantom terror of the African Cape. She was described as a powerful vessel, manned by a desperate fleshand-blood crew, whose rapacity triumphed over all fear of danger, and whose cruelty forbade all hope of mercy. Yet, though she was neither built" of air, nor manned" by demons, her feats had been so wonderful, that there was at length no other rational mode of accounting for them than by tracing them to supernatural, and conse quently demoniacal, agency. She had sailed through fleets undiscovered; she had escaped from the fastest pursuers; she had overtaken the swiftest fugitives; she had appeared where she was not expected, and disappeared where her very latitude and longitude seemed calculable. One time, when she was deemed the scourge of the Levant, she would fall on some secure and happy trading captain, whose careless gaze fell on the rock of Gibraltar; at another, when Spanish cruizers were confidently preparing for her capture off their own shores, her crew were glutting their avarice and gratifying their cruelty by seizing the goods and sinking the vessels of the Smyrna traders. In short, it seemed as if ubiquity were an attribute of the Demon Ship. Her fearful title had been first given by those who dreaded to become her victims; but she seemed not ill pleased by the appalling epithet; and shortly, as if in audacious adoption of the name she had acquired, showed the word DEMON in flaming letters on her stern. Some mariners went so far as to say that a smell of brimstone, and a track of phosphoric light, marked for miles the pathway of her keel in the waves. Others declared that she had the power, through her evil agents, of raising such a strange, dense, and portentous mist in the atmosphere, as prevented her victims from descrying her approach until they fell, as it were, into her very jaws. To capture her seemed impossible; she ever mastered her equals, and eluded her superiors. Innumerable were the vessels that had left different ports in the Mediterranean to disappear forever. It seemed the cruel practice of the Demon to sink her victims in their own vessels. The Demon Ship was talked of from the ports of the Levant to Gibraltar; and no vessel held herself in secure waters until she had passed the Straits. Of course such a |