[Illustration:  MORLAIX.]

It was very certain that we should not alight upon another Catherine.

For the last time we wandered out that night when the moon had risen, to take our farewell of the old streets that had given us so much pleasure.  We knew them well, and felt that we were communing with old friends.  Their outlines, their gabled roofs, the deep shadows cast by the pale moonlight, the warmer reflections from the beautiful latticed windows—­all charmed us.  We moved in an ancient world, conversed with ghosts of a long-past age; the shades of those who had left behind them so much of the artistic and the excellent; who had, in their day and hour, lived and breathed and moved even as the world of to-day—­had been animated with the same thoughts and emotions; in a word, had fulfilled their lot and passed through their birthright of sorrow and suffering.

It was late before we could turn away from the fascination.  After the crowded scenes of the day, we seemed surrounded by the very silence and repose, the majesty of Death.  Everyone had retired to rest; the curfew had long tolled, and the fires were nearly all out.  Only here and there a lighted lattice spoke of a late watcher, who perhaps was searching for the philosopher’s stone or the elixir of life, wherewith to turn the grey hairs of age to the flowing locks of youth—­the feeble gait of one stricken in years to the vigour and comeliness of manhood.  Vain wish! and needless; for why will they not look at life in its truer aspect, and feel that the nearer they approach to death the younger they are growing?

MY MAY-QUEEN

(AEtat 4).

    Come, child, that I may make
      A primrose wreath to crown thee Queen of Spring! 
      Of thee the glad birds sing;
      For thee small flowers fling
    Their lives abroad; for thee—­for Dorothea’s sake!

    Hasten!  For I must pay
      Due homage to thee, have thy Royal kiss,
      Our thrush shall sing of this;
      —­In many a bout of bliss
    Tell how I crown’d thee Queen, Spring’s Queen, this glad May-day.

JOHN JERVIS BERESFORD, M.A.

SWEET NANCY.

Shenton was a dull and sleepy village at the best of times; but then it was situated so far from any town.  Exboro’ was the nearest, and that was ten miles away.  To reach it you must traverse a range of pine-clad hills, descending now and again into cool valleys, full of sweet scents and sounds in summer, but dreary enough in winter, when the snow lay thick and the wind whistled through the leafless branches.

Shenton consisted of one long street, terminating in a green on which the church and school-house stood.  After that there were no more houses till you reached Exboro’, excepting a few scattered farms a mile or two away at Braley Brook.  There was also a large farm, known as the Manor, half-a-mile in the opposite direction, occupied by one Jacob Hurst, who was the owner of the farms at Braley Brook.