in the search, while the schooner lay off and on, waiting for them:  but they found nothing.  After they got back, however, the colonel he had a meeting with the owners, and satisfied them all, in some way—­I never knew how—­that they had just reversed the bearings, and hadn’t been near the place.  How he knew, I can’t say, for he had never been there, to my knowledge, and I happen to know that they must have been pretty near the spot, for they found a sort of a hillock that I remembered, and they told me all about the bearings, and they agreed with my chart.”

“Well!—­”

“Well, the next time they went, they took Taylor with them, and everything went on smoothly enough till one day, when the voyage was almost up, Taylor he said to Pearce—­’Pearce,’ said he, ’to-morrow, at this time, I shall be a rich man; and now,’ says he, ‘Mr. Pearce,’ says he, ’I must have my letters.’  Upon this, up steps John Mac, and says he, ‘Taylor,’ says he, ’when you want any letters, you’ll have to come to me for them; and I shall have to put you upon allowance.’  And then Taylor—­he was an old man-o’-warsman, you see, and he couldn’t get along without his grog—­he jest ups and says—­’that’s enough, capt’n.  You may haul aft the sheet, tack ship, and go home.  I shall tell you nothing more.  As soon as the money is safe—­I see how ‘tis—­old Taylor’ll have to go overboard.’  And he stuck to what he said, though he went ashore with them, just to show them that he knew every point of the compass—­for he told them where they would find a couple of holes in the ledge—­and they found them there, just as he said; and the first thing they saw, there was Taylor away up on the top of a high mountain, smoking a pipe.  He had always told them he knew how to get up there; but they never believed him, because they had all tried and couldn’t fetch it.”

“And he stuck to it, hey, and never told them anything more?”

“Jess so.”

“And what became of Taylor?  Is he living?”

“No; he died in the hospital at Bath not more than five years ago.”

“And you still think the money was there?”

“Think!—­I am sure of it.”

“Do you believe it is there now?”

“Do I!—­Certainly I do!”

Whereupon, all I have to say is—­Hurrah for bubbles!

* * * * *

SONNET.—­QUEEN OF SCOTS.

BY WM. ALEXANDER.

  Within a castle’s battlemented walls,
    In crimsoned dungeon lay fair Scotia’s queen: 
    Like drooping sorrow seemed she oft to lean
  Her weary head.  Pale, weeping memory recalls
  The beaming joys of her life’s early day,
    Forever fled.  Her spirit, palled with gloom,
    Anticipates sweet rest but in the tomb—­
  White winged Faith, her guardian one, alway
  There hovering nigh.  ’Tis morn; dreams she no more;
    On Fotheringay’s black scaffold now she stands,
    Clasping her cherished croslet in her hands,
  Anon to die.  Her fate the loves deplore;
  The angel-loves, eke, waft her soul to heaven;
  Her faults, her follies, to her faith forgiven.