This of course only made the nurse more eager than ever to quit that forlorn, ill-omened house of Elfen-Mere.

But storms descended and rains fell, and travelling became an utter impossibility for weeks, perhaps, to come. The wild autumnal season had brought in the grim, ghostly, blustering winter, with long howling winds, and blinding snow storms, which almost buried the rambling manor while the trembling gables testified to the strong force which made the old walls shake, and the crazy edifice quiver to its foundations. And thus Christmas surprised them-white and gleaming the lands without, sheeted as beneath a cloud-a frost binding all in, as under a band of triple steel and adamant. And at night, as the hollow blast came sounding over weald and wold, screaming with a shrill cadence over the frozen surface of the mere, the nurse watched, with apprehensions, the speaking face of Elfen, as, laid in her little bed, she seemed to bend her face towards that centre of her affections-for it had taken a deep hold of her imaginative mind; and that house-in which her manaic mother had dwelt, where Elfen had been bornwas to her the key-note of her dreaming fancies. Nurse Elliott dreaded to hear her babble of it in the garrulity of childhood, coloured by poetry, and tainted by superstition.

One night, when snow lay deep on the ground, and the whole vault was of a vivid blue-blackness, with a piercing east wind rushing through, like the coming of trampling myriads-the moon breaking forth cast a light over the expanse over the wilderness, and the mere, and the strange fantastie house, rocking in very decrepitude, and threatening to tumble down hourly and the white earth shining against the sky, now filled with an unearthly glare, wore so frozen, so desolate an aspect, that the gazer involuntarily shrunk from the picture thus presented.

Elfen had been taken by nurse Elliott to her little chamber-which was warm and comfortable enough-exhibiting unusual restlessness. There was nothing irritable or captious, generally speaking, at any time, in the child's disposition. It was sweetness and docility personified; but her capricious and wayward mood confounded while it endeared-it embarrassed so many well regulated plans-it defcated so many reasonable methods adopted with her-but the great, untiring, motherly love of the nurse bore her through all. She almost worshipped her charge, and none can know how dearly Elfen loved her nurse.

Her restlessness this night did not escape nurse Elliott's notice, who, for a reason of her own, determined to watch beside her bed all night. Elfen would not have the blinds down, or the curtains drawn, and so the white, bleak, bareness-the shrouded earth-all now left of the three sister seasons of the year-lay before her like a vast outspread cemetery.

Moaning with a melancholy cadence, which words are inadequate to describe, the night-blasts swept by. The hours crawled wearily on, and all within the house had sought rest-all save nurse Elliott, who sat beside the fire, only every now and then watching the lovely head of Elfen, whose beauty seemed to have taken a splendour almost unearthly-whose white cheeks were whiter-whose eyes sparkled with a bright eager lustre-and again some premonition told her, that for her life-for her very life-she must not go to sleep; and sleep began to weigh upon her (who has not experienced this when watching?) with a leaden, resistless hand.

"Elfen, darling!" she murmured, at last, "why do you not sleep?" "Hush, nursy, dear !" whispered the child. "My mamma! my mamma! listen! look!"

The nurse listened. A wail-quite a human wail-laden with untold anguish, came swelling audibly-faintly, yet audible enough, to her ears. There was a flutter before the window, as of garments; and the nurse

rubbed her eyes, for there, there, with the pitiful, tearful face, and the wringing hands, was the form of her ghostly mistress-the Lily of ElfenMere-and the shape seemed to be in the bitterest distress that it could not enter the chamber.

The nurse could almost make oath that she heard the doors, far away, tried without-latch and lock, handle and hasp,-and that a sob and a sigh followed every defeated effort. Awhile the figure had disappeared from the window, but the fluttering garments, the pallid face, and the wringing hands, came again. Asleep or awake, she knew not. A spell was on her. Dreaming, or beholding a reality, she had no power to interfere, as she saw Elfen rise eagerly, quickly, breathlessly from the little bed, and murmuring, as her tears fell,

Wait, mamma!-wait, darling mamma!- I will come. Elfen will warm your sweet cold face. Oh me! my own mamma so cold with the snow, so wet with tears-are they frozen, mamma? Wait,-oh wait!" and, bare footed, with no other clothing than her night dress, the child, oblivious of the presence of the spell-bound nurse, seized the taper, hurried down the stairs, drew bolt, slipped bar-her weak hands mastering all obstacles and the clang of the closing door resounded after her.

Oh horror! The two white figures-one following the other-were next seen hurrying across the frozen ground, over the bitter snow, through the keen, merciless, bleak east wind; and her little darling feet would be dead with the cold, and bleeding with the frozen fragments. The covetous, the pitiless phantom mother was bent upon possessing herself of her child, and the angels, on that holy Christmas Eve, would not save her! And it is a beautiful belief, too, that on this night, of all others, they have 66 especial charge."

From the chair where she sat, as in a trance, the nurse watched this awful scene, this awful pair-Death and Life-hurrying to the same bourne, to the fatal, fatal mere. But she was fascinated, chained, fastened as by some dark sorcery, to her chair. And now they were hurrying on, on-nearer to the mere; and the little, bleeding, frozen feet of Elfen would testify to her track. She tried to rise, to scream, to call out. The terrors of a guilty conscience were not greater than her pain of helplessness. She suddenly lost sight of them, and then she was released. Once more she alarmed the household, and set forth. Away, and on; and oh, how shudderingly cold it was ;-on, and on,-and oh! what is this, this little delicate, huddled, white heap, at her feet, on the bank of the mere? Oh heaven, it is Elfen,-sweet, little, smiling Elfen !-Her little bird; her nurseling; her heart's darling;—and oh, my God!-dead! dead! dead!

And oh so very, very cold!

Yes, she lay dead at last. The angels had guarded her, and bore her unstained spirit up to God. The vivifying passion of love, that lingered with the latest breath in the bosom of the poor mother, and made her restless in her grave, was satisfied at last. Elfen-Mere had peace; a peace that the voice of little Elfen never broke again,--and the rest is"Silence!"

The Martyr of Allahabad.*

BY THE HON. AND REV. BAPTIST NOEL.

[From "Memorials of Ensign A. M. H. Cheek, of the Sixth Native Bengal Infantry.” By the Rev. R. Meek. London: Nisbett and Co.]

Treason in Delhi's walls had risen; Bengal's battalions rose ;
And every fort became a prison begirt with Sepoy foes.
Throughout the lines of Allahabad fanatic fury grew ;

And mutineers, with hatred mad, their own commanders slew.

One only from the gory heap, crept out to die alone;

He did not wail, nor groan, nor weep, but said, "Thy will be done." Within the covert of a wood, close by a streamlet's play,

Wounded and destitute of food, four days the soldier lay.

And now they find him 'midst the trees, not friends who bring relief—
But Sepoys, who with fury seize and drag him to their chief.
One brandishes a bloody knife; all hate to Christians bear;

Fresh stabs will take his ebbing life, nor curses wound his ear.
But who is he that elder man, bound, beaten, fearing worse,

On whom each fierce Mohammedan, is pouring out his curse! Why are those guards around him set? those cords upon his wrist ? He was the slave of Mahomet, and now he preaches Christ.

"Repent!" exclaimed the Sepoy crew, or Allah's vengeance taste!" Repent!" exclaimed their Captain too," or this day is thy last! "Seek then the prophet's aid by prayer, abjure the Christian lie; Or by his sacred name I swear, Apostate, thou shalt die !" The drops are standing on his brow, his quivering lips are pale; Who will sustain his weakness now, for hope and courage fail? Then spake the wounded boy, while faith lighted his languid eye; "O Brother! ne'er from dread of death thy Saviour's name deny !"

Ring out the Joy Bells!

BY GEORGE F. PARDON.

RING out the Joy Bells! a New Year is born!
Welcome him gladly, and clothe him in white :
Pile up the Yule Log; blow trumpet and horn;
Hail him with music and crown him with light!
Fair be his welcome, and hearty his greeting;
Mirth, love, and jollity join hand in hand;
Shout and be merry while Old Time is fleeting;
Ring out the Joy Bells all over the land.
The Old Year is dead; let us honour his ashes,
Right merrily died he 'mid gaieties fair;
So, while laughter is loudest and merriment flashes,
With dance and with music we'll welcome his heir!
Clang go the cymbals and brave sounds the horn,
Ring out the Joy Bells, a New Year is born.

New Style the
the Second.

BE not alarmed, my life-loving reader, at the startling title of this adventurous article. The New Style which I am about to introduce and recommend to your patronage is no heretical re-reformation of the calendar, like that which Lord Chesterfield effected last century. I shall put that off, sine die; namely, till Lord John passes his bill, when I will ask leave to bring in my own private project of chronological improvement. I neither want to make you a day older than you really are, nor to cut off a single hour of existence as at present allotted to you by law and Hannay's Almanack. I do not wish you to go to bed, and to sleep, on any given İst of January, for the sake of waking you up, on what ought to be to-morrow morning, and impudently telling you that you have been slumbering on till the 12th instant, the moment you open your wondering eyes. You may be as tenacious of your vitality as you please; I have no desire to rob you of it, either to add it to my own term of life, like certain mysterious imitators of the Wandering Jew, or to make a national sacrifice of the stolen interval, after the fashion of that perverse Pope Gregory the somethingth. Perhaps, when I do meddle with those affairs, I shall benevolently set about making people a twelvemonth younger than they are, or have been supposed to be, instead of clapping upon their weary backs a further burthen of eleven days; and whatever jading gentlemen may profess, they will be just as glad of that innovation, in their heart of hearts, as any full-blown lady can be. But my New Style, I repeat, is in quite a different line; more utilitarian, more amusing, and certainly more productive of £. s. d.,—which I might safely leave as the climax of praise.

To plunge at once over head and ears into the mighty matter now before us, my Style is a style of literature, so bold, so novel, and so extensively applicable, that I have no more idea of the consequences that may result from it, than Tasman had of nuggets of gold when he first discovered the southern offshoot of Australia. "When I say novel, the rudimental germs, it is true, did previously exist, and a few promising though imperfect attempts have been dashed off by the genius of Messrs. Rowland and Son; when I say bold, I do not mean to insinuate that the British College of Health, and Professor Mawreason, have been in any way deficient in courage; and when I say extensively applicable, it is in no spirit of envious detraction from the cosmopolitan merits of Always' Pills-(only see the advertisements in every country, language, and publication), and still less of Always' Ointment. No; the field is open to us all. I only ask for a fair start and no favour. That is to say, I mean to make the first start, and to skim the cream of the new invention which I am about to publish. Perhaps, even, it would not be a bad speculation to secure a patent for England and the colonies.

The mercantile value of literature is a subject hitherto but imperfectly understood, and still less profitably applied. The incalculable resources which it contains within itself, and which are yet hidden in the bosom of the future, now for the first time give lively symptoms of their rich inexhaustibility. Pooh! To teach the young idea how to shoot,-call that a delightful task! To curb the overbearing, to instruct the ignorant, to amuse the sick and aged, to smite the insolent and the hypocrite,—all that

might be very well in the "good old times" of literary labour. The pen certainly flourished respectably enough when it acted the part of a knighterrant's lance, redressing the wrongs of the wretched, compelling the robber to disgorge his booty, and giving sundry pricks and bumps to mighty folk who deemed themselves intangible. All that, I say, was very well. But the pen, now, forthwith, and henceforward, shall become the finger of Croesus, and more; it shall turn the meanderings of the golden stream in whatever direction it is desired to make it flow. Of course, the ready writer who handles the pen will be allowed his full share of the auriferous sands; -though before distinctly affirming that fact, I should like to know at what rate, per line, Messrs. Aaron, the tailors, pay their tame poet.

It is almost a proof of the value of an invention, that it goes on quietly for several years without making any great stir in the world, or meeting with general favour and adoption. Such was the case with gas and the steam-engine; such is the case with my New Style, which is at once to enlighten and move the universe. For the last two or three years, at least, the "Almanack Comique," of Paris, has seriously and perseveringly persisted in giving one New Style article; and yet the admirable system of which it sets the example has not become general, even in France! But if we only knew our own interests what much happier fellows we should be! I therefore, without further preface, lay before my brother literati the model proposed to their imitation, and the highly remunerative consequences which it is sure to suggest. It is a goose which will lay us many a golden egg if we do but take care not to crush it to death in our zeal to secure the possession of it. The latest sample, then, of New Style literature, runs as follows. I will translate its title into "Mr. Punchjaw," simply observing, in the words of a late eminent writer and penny-a-liner, "Please to read this bill," and "Take down the address."

"The fact which I am about to relate, and which happened very recently, is perfectly authentic. Did you ever suffer from pain in the teeth?—Yes, doubtless; for who amongst us has not paid his tribute to that horrible form of torture? But the torment is nothing. There is something, I appeal to your hearts whether I speak truth or not,-something which is even more terrible still; and that is, the consciousness that you must lose the aching tooth; that you must part with two, three, or even four favourite dental pearls; perhaps with every tooth you have in your head! What a dreadful existence is then in perspective! Adieu to beauty; adieu to all the pleasures of the table; adieu to oratorical success; adieu, adieu to the graceful smile. Every one of those delights takes wing for ever, the

moment the last unhappy tooth is extracted. My young friend Paul Germinet, in other respects a rising artist, proved by sad experience the actual horrors of this wretched fate.

"Germinet, on the day of his birth, was certainly gifted by the fairies as his godmothers. All which could contribute to weave an embroidery of gold and silk into the sombre tissue of mortal life, appeared to be united in him and around him. With a decided taste for luxury and pleasure[Remarkable young man, so unlike all others!],-he was sufficiently wealthy to satisfy every whim; his handsome figure, and still handsomer face, removed all apprehension of disappointment in love affairs; a true artistical vocation had stuck the palette into one of his hands and the flowing pencil into the other; and the very first of his maiden attempts proclaimed that he would soon become a master of the art. Germinet, therefore, led the happiest life that it was possible for man or artist to lead. He had attracted a charming lady-love; every fellow-student was his bosom friend; and he consequently enjoyed a flow of spirits which seemed no more likely to run itself out than the Floratian river which baffled the countryman who had not sense enough to ask for the ferry-boat.