In wandering through beautiful scenery, in the enjoyment of blue skies, rich groves, sweet flowers, southern breezes, purple mountains, moonlit seas, glassy lakes, green pastures, gurgling streams, and everything that is enchanting, Sedley lost the vivid remembrance of the past, and strove to live in the present and future.

The future! What an awful thought! how mysterious and impenetrable the darkness in which it is involved! Who can tell what a day-an hour may bring forth? The depressed, half-broken heart may yet be destined to years of unclouded happiness, and, in the decline of an honoured life, may recount its early sorrows as a tale of former days, and wonder at the half-forgotten agonies which had so powerfully shaken it in the season of early youth.

Fatigued by continual travelling, Sir Herbert Sedley at length determined to repose for a few weeks in the delicious vale watered by the Po and Tesino, and sheltered by the majestic Alps and the variegated Apennines. He found accommodations in the house of a simple, ami

able family, who made it their whole study to please and amuse him. It consisted of a devout and sincere priest, his married sister, who was well-stricken in years, her daughter, and that daughter's husband, who was the only individual of the little circle who displeased Sedley. He was a sullen man, with a downcast eye, and seldom did a smile light up his rugged countenance. The daughter was a very pretty young woman, about twenty-six years of age, and Sedley was led to notice and feel interested for her by the air of subdued sadness which seemed habitual to her meek counte

nance.

Her hair was black as jet, and braided smoothly under her cap, which was always neat and of a spotless white. Her forehead was singularly fair and well-shaped, the very seat of serenity; her eyes were large and of a hazel colour-expressive of extreme sweetness and soft melancholy; her mouth and teeth were beautiful, and her smile, which rarely appeared, was like a sunbeam bursting from the

bosom of a dark cloud. She was tall and wellformed, and altogether there was a classical elegance in her whole contour seldom to be met with.

The priest's house was situated on a little eminence commanding a panoramic view of the surrounding valley. It was backed by extensive woods, through whose vistas might be caught glimpses of bright sylvan loveliness.

One morning as Sedley returned from a long ramble, he observed a sunburnt, but handsome young man in the garb of a sailor, with his little knapsack on his back, apparently travelling in the same direction with himself.

Sedley soon discovered that the sailor was wending his way towards the priest's house, and every now and then he stopped, and gazed on it with an expression of the most intense happiness lighting up his fine features.

Sedley felt his curiosity strongly excited, and after lingering a little near the house, he saw the door open, and the pretty Maria came out with a watering pot in her hand, and walked

quickly towards a fountain in the garden without once looking up.

The sailor arrived at the garden gate, and leaned on it for a moment, thus obstructing Sedley's passage. He trembled visibly, and was apparently hardly able to support himself. Still Maria did not see him. At last he uttered her name in a tone of tenderness so soft and thrilling, that she started from her reclining posture at the fountain, and letting the watering-pot fall unheeded, she turned rapidly, and fixed a bewildered glance on the sailor, who by this time had unfastened the gate, and was hastening towards her with extended arms. Before he could reach her, a sudden contraction, as of pain, shot across her features, and without a word or sound she fell senseless on the grass.

In an instant Sedley and the stranger were both at her side, and the sailor, lifting her as a feather in his arms, gazed on her pallid face with unutterable love, whilst Sedley, taking some water from the fountain in the palms of his hands, proceeded to sprinkle it over her forehead.

One of her arms hung listlessly down, and the sailor taking it tenderly up, pressed the hand to his lips, but suddenly, as if stung by some venomous thing, started, and looking intently at the fingers, began to turn round the wedding ring as if unconsciously; this lasted a few seconds, and Sedley was shocked at the fearful change which had come over his countenance. The flush of delight was replaced by a deadly paleness; the lips were compressed, and the eyes wild and unmeaning-he seemed turned to stone.

At length he placed the still insensible Maria gently on the grass at Sedley's feet, and, without speaking a word, cast one vacant look on her and another at the house, and ran like a maniac down the hill.

Amazed and affected at this strange scene, Sedley was proceeding to the door when the old mother came out, and after expressing extreme astonishment at his account of the stranger, carried Maria into the house, and applied

restoratives, which soon began to take effect.