morning will not tempt you to repeat this singular disturbance of the peace of this community."

The party were all too thoroughly mortified to attempt a reply, and they separated. Erskine felt a most humiliating consciousness of his disgrace; but he had not sufficient magnanimity to confess it, nor even to express a regret that he had wounded a man, who exposed his life to prevent him from committing a crime. The Woodhulls were deprived of the pitiful pleasure of sneering at Mr. Lloyd's want of cour age. The younger brother's arm still ached from his experience of Mr. Lloyd's physical strength; and they all felt the inferiority of their boastful, passionate, and reckless foolhardiness, to the collected, disinterested courage of a peaceful man, who had risked his life in their quarrel.

To fill up the measure of their mortification, Rivington had not left the village two hours, before several persons arrived there in pursuit of him. They informed his new friends, that he was not a Virginian, a name that passes among our northern bloods as synonymous with high-breeding, highmindedness, noble daring, &c., &c., but that he was a countryman of their own, a celebrated swindler, who had lived by his wits, ascending by regular gradations through the professions of hostler, dancing-master, and itinerate actor; and that having lately, by cleverness in managing the arts of his vocation, possessed himself of a large sum of money, he had made his debût as gentleman at the Springs.

After the events of the morning, Mr. Lloyd felt more anxiety than ever on Jane Elton's account; and never weary in well-doing, he determined to make one more effort to rescue Erskine from the pernicious society and influence of the Woodhulls. He solicited an interview with him; and without alluding to the events of the morning, he remonstrated

warmly and kindly against an intimacy, of which the degradation and the danger were too evident to need pointing out. He trusted himself to speak of Jane, of her innocence, her purity, her trustful affection, her solitariness, her dependence.

At any other time, we cannot think Edward would have been unmoved by the eloquence of his appeal; but now he was exasperated by the mortifications of the morning; and when Mr. Lloyd said, "Erskine, if Jane Elton knew all, would she not withdraw her affections from thee?" he replied, angrily, "She shall know all. I have a right to expect she will overlook a few foibles; such as belong to every young man of spirit. She owes me, at least, so much indulgence. She is bound to me by ties that cannot be broken-that she certainly cannot break." He burst away from Mr. Lloyd, and went precipitately to Mrs. Harvey's, where the explanation we have related ensued, and put a final termination to their unequal alliance.

The speculations of villagers are never at rest till they know the wherefore of the slightest movements of the prominent personages that figure on their theatre. Happily for our heroine, who was solicitous for a little while to be sheltered from the scrutiny and remarks of her neighbours, the affair of the duel soon became public, and sufficiently accounted for Erskine's abrupt departure.

Jane would have communicated to Mary, her kind, constant friend Mary Hull, the issue of her engagement; but it so happened, that she was at this time absent on a visit to her blind sister. She felt it to be just, that she should acquaint Mr. Lloyd with the result of an affair, in which he had manifested so benevolent and vigilant a care for her happiness. Perhaps she felt a natural wish, that he should know his confidence in her had not been misplaced. She could not

speak to him on the subject, for their intercourse had been suspended of late; and besides, she was habitually reserved about speaking of herself. She sat down to address a note to him; and, after writing a dozen, each of which offended her in some point-either betrayed a want of delicacy towards Erskine, or a sentiment of self-complacency—either expressed too much, or two little-she threw them all into the fire, and determined to leave the communication to accident.

CHAPTER XIV.

Oh, wad some pow'r the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as others see us!

It wad frae monie a blunder free us,

And foolish notion:

What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
And e'en devotion!

A FEW days after Erskine's departure, Mrs. Harvey entered Jane's room hastily,-" Our village," she exclaimed, "is the most extraordinary place in the world; wonders cease to be wonderful among us."

"What has happened now?" inquired Jane, "I know not face whether to expect good or evil."

from your

"Oh evil, my dear, evil enough to grieve and frighten you. Your wretched cousin David Wilson has got himself into a scrape at last, from which all the arts of all his family cannot extricate him. You know," she continued, "that we saw an account in the New-York paper of last week, of a robbery committed on the mail-stage: the robbers have been detected and taken, and Wilson, who it seems had assumed a feigned name, is among them."

"And the punishment is death !" said Jane, in a tone of sorrow and alarm.

"Yes; so Mr. Lloyd says, by the laws of the United States, against which he has offended. Mr. Lloyd has been here, to request that you, dear Jane, will go to your aunt and say to her that he is ready to render her any services in his power. You know he is acquainted in Philadelphia, where David is imprisoned, and he may be of essential use to him."

"My poor aunt, and Elvira! what misery is this for them?" said Jane, instinctively transfusing her own feelings into their bosoms.

"For your aunt it may be," replied Mrs. Harvey, "for I think nothing can quite root out the mother; but as for Elvira, I believe she is too much absorbed in her own affairs to think of David's body or soul."

"I will go immediately to my aunt; but what has happened to Elvira ?"

"Why Elvira, it seems, during her visit to the west, met with an itinerant French dancing-master, who became violently enamored of her, and who did not sigh or hope in vain. She probably knew his vocation would be an insuperable obstacle to her seeing him at home; and so between them they concerted a scheme to obviate that difficulty, by introducing him to Mrs. Wilson as a French physician, from Paris, who should volunteer his services to cure her scrofula, which, it is said, has lately become more troublesome than ever. By

way

of a decoy, he was to go upon the usual quack practice of "no cure no pay."

"And this," exclaimed Jane, "is the sick physician we heard was at my aunt's ?"

"Yes, poor fellow, and sick enough he has been. He arrived just at twilight, last week on Monday, and having tied his horse, he was tempted, by seeing the door of the