intercourse with another man, giving him interviews that you conceal from me, having letters that you destroy, doubtless receiving caresses that you take care are unwitnessed, while you dare to smile in my face, and to dupe me with child-like tenderness, and to bid me 'trust' you and believe in you! Love shared to me is worthless, and on my wife, Beatrice, no stain must rest!"

As he spoke, a dark shadow spread over her countenance, her evil spirit rose up in her, and her bright, frank, fearless face grew almost as hard and cold as his, while her teeth were set together, till her lips, usually soft and laughing, were pressed into one straight, haughty line.

"Since you give me up so easily, far be it from me to dispute your will. We part from this hour, if you desire it. My honour is as dear to me as yours to you, and to those who dare to suspect it I never stoop to defend it!"

"But, my God! Beatrice, what am I to believe?" "Whatever you please!"

"What I please! Child, you must be mad. What can I believe, but that you are the most perfect of all actresses, that your art is the greatest of all sins, the art that clothes itself in innocence, and carries would-be truth upon its lips. Prove to me that I

wrong you!" She shook her head; the devil in her had still the victory; her eyes glittered, and her little teeth were clenched together.

"What I exact is trust without proof. I am not your prisoner, Lord Earlscourt, to be tried coldly, and acquitted if you find legal evidence of innocence; convicted, if there be a link wanting. If you choose to trust me, I have told you often your trust will never be wronged; if you choose to condemn me, do. I shall not stoop to show you your injustice."

Earlscourt's face grew dark and hard as hers, but it was wonderful how well his pride chained down all evidence of suffering; the only sign was in the hoarseness of, and quiver in, his voice.

"Say nothing more-prevarication is guilt! God forgive you, Beatrice Boville! If you loved me, and knelt at my feet, I would not make you my wife after the art and the lies with which you have repaid my trust. Thank God, you do not already bear my name and my honour in your hands!"

With those words he left her. Beatrice stood still in the same place, her lips set in one scornful line, her eyes glittering, her brow crimson, her whole attitude defiant, wronged, and unyielding. Earlscourt passed me, his face white as death, and was out of sight in a second. I waited a moment, then I followed my impulse, and went up to her.

"Beatrice, for Heaven's sake, what is all this ?"

She turned her large eyes on me haughtily.

"Do you believe what your cousin does?"

I answered her as briefly:

No, I do not. There is some mistake here."

She seized my arm impetuously:

"Promise me, on your honour, never to tell what I tell to

live.

Promise me, on your faith as a gentleman."

"On my honour, I promise. Well?"

you while I

"The man whom you saw with me to-night is my father. Lord

Earlscourt chose to condemn me without inquiry, so let him! But I tell you, that you may tell him if I die before him, that he wronged me. You know, Mr. Boville's-my father's-character. I had not seen him since I was a child, but when he heard of my engagement to Lord Earlscourt he found me out, and wanted to force himself on him, and borrow money of him, and-" She stopped, her face was crimson, but she went on, passionately: "All my efforts, of course, were to keep them apart, to spare my father such degradation, and your cousin such an application. I could not tell Lord Earlscourt, for he is generous as the winds, and I knew what he would have done. My note was from my father; he wanted to frighten me into introducing him to Lord Earlscourt, but he did not succeed. I would not have your cousin disgraced or pained by Arthur, that is all my crime! No very great one, is it ?" And she laughed a loud bitter laugh, as unlike her own as the stormy shadow on her face was like the usual sunshine.

"But, great Heaven! why not have told this to Earlscourt?" She signed me to silence with a passionate gesture.

but once

"No! He dishonoured me with suspicion; let him go. I forbid you ever to breathe a word of what I have told you to him. If he has pride, so have I. He would hold no dishonour greater than for another man to charge him with a lie. My truth is as untainted as his, and my honour as dear to me. He accused me wrongly; let him repent. I would have loved and reverenced him as never any woman yet could do; suspected, I could find no happiness with him. His bitter words are stamped into my heart. I shall never forget-I doubt if I shall ever forgive them. I can bear anything but injustice or misconception. If any doubt me, they are free to do so; theirs is the sin, not mine. As he has sown so must he reap, and so must I!" A low gasping sob choked her voice, but she stood like a little Pythoness, the pearls gleaming above her brow, her eyes unnaturally bright, the colour burning in her face, her attitude what it was when he left her, defiant, wronged, unyielding. She swept away from me to a man who was coming through the other room, and he stared at her set lips and her gleaming eyes as she asked him, carelessly, "Count Avonyi, will you have the kindness to take me to Lady Mechlin?"

That was the last I saw of her. She left the Bad with her aunt as soon as the day dawned, and when I went to our hotel, I found that Earlscourt had ordered post-horses immediately he quitted the ballroom, and gone-where, he did not leave word. So my presentiment was verified: the pride of both had come in conflict, and the pride of neither had succumbed. How long it would sustain and satisfy them, I could not guess; but Lady Clive smiled again, as sweetly as ladies ever do when their thorns have thriven and brought forth abundant fruit. Some other time I will tell you how I saw BEATRICE BOVILLE again; but I often thought of

Pauline, by pride

Angels have fallen ere thy time!

when I recalled her with the pearls above her brow, and her passionate, gleaming eyes, and her fearless, scornful, haughty anguish, as she had stood before me that night when PRIDE v. PRIDE caused the wreck of both their lives.

REMINISCENCES OF THE FEDERAL CITY OF
WASHINGTON.

BY MRS. BUSHBY.

DEAR, pleasant Washington! When I remember the happy days I spent there, now many years ago, with kind, hospitable friends, I grieve to think of the sad change which has so recently taken place in it, and the still worse calamities which may befal it, if it should unhappily become the theatre of civil war. Alas, that the raging passions of man -the tenant of this earth but for a brief space-should overwhelm the good sense and good feeling of the multitudes of beings whose unity has presented so wonderful a spectacle to the rest of the world! Alas, that the Angels of Discord and Destruction should have swept with their dusky and poison-dropping wings over that vast land where peace and prosperity had so long smiled!

Where now is the patriotism of which the Americans boasted so loudly? Where now the grateful allegiance to the memory of that Washington, whose honoured and heroic name seemed, like a necromantic spell, to unite in one gigantic bond the inhabitants of the rugged snow-clad hills of the North, and of the burning plains of the South?

The spell is broken, and the North and the South have thrown off the ties of brotherhood, and assumed the attitude of foes. Yet this political convulsion has not been the work of a moral volcanic eruption, or unexpected conflagration. It has been silently creeping on, instigated by an overbearing spirit of interference on the one side, and a sore spirit of jealousy at such interference on the other. It was impossible that this meddling and repelling of meddling could go on amicably, and now the pent-up storm has burst, and the great Transatlantic republic is in the agonies of dissolution! Yet this crisis was not wholly unforeseen; it was prophesied, among others, by an old Indian seer some years ago, when all was smooth to the eye and to the ear.

I visited the United States and Canada during my youthful days, in company with some near relations, and our party made the longest halts at New York and at Washington. We also penetrated some way into the then wild interior, and had the pleasure, or rather the misery, of travelling over what used to be called " corduroy roads"-viz. trees felled on each side of a swamp of thick mud, and thrown across it in their rough native state. Pains were seldom taken to fill up the hollows formed by the curvatures of these mighty trees so large in their circumference; therefore it may be imagined how disagreeable was the sensation, and how fatiguing the exercise of bumping over these log roads.

Thoroughly exhausted, we reached one evening a rude inn, situated in a small clearance by the roadside. It was nothing better than a log-hut, yet the prospect of rest even under so humble a roof was hailed with satisfaction. The evening was chilly, and almost an entire tree was stuffed into the wide chimney, piled upon the ample hearth, and crackled

and blazed to the imminent danger, one would have thought, of the slightly-framed domicile.

a very

tolerable

On our way thither we had passed close by a forest where there had recently been a fire. In the pale moonlight the scorched and blackened stumps of the trees, standing each clear of the other, for the tall grass and the thick bushy underwood, which had, as it were, connected tree to tree, had been burned down, looked like a grim array of dark spectres frowning on the intruders into that cheerless solitude. Strange forms to the eye of the least imaginative these mutilated stems assumed! And the solemnity of the scene was enhanced by the deep silence around, for there was not a leaf stirring in the air; the devouring element had consumed them all! Much cannot be said for our accommodation during the night, all travellers occupying one and the same room, though, happily, not one and the same couch. But the weary can sleep anywhere, even on the bare boards of the open deck of a ship at sea, lulled to repose by the murmurs of the dashing waves. The next morning, after breakfast of tea with maple sugar, pumpkin and corn-cakes, honeycomb, and venison steaks for those who liked them, we prepared to explore the locality. There had been discovered at some little distance from this place a high mound filled with bones-an Indian grave, where, probably, the remains of those who had fallen on some ancient battle-field had been deposited-and the rest of my party had gone to see it, and to wonder, from the enormous size of most of the whitened bones, if the aborigines of that part of the country had been giants. But I, not being much given even then to taking long walks, had strolled into a neighbouring forest, which, unscathed by fire or the hatchet, stood in its pristine magnificence. I did not venture there, however, until I had been assured that there were no wild beasts or wild Indians lurking in it. After sauntering on a little, I entered a rather wide path, strewed with fallen leaves, while the well-covered branches of the lofty trees met far, far above my head, forming a verdant roof to this long and almost straight alley. I had taken with me my sketch-book and camp-stool, and was looking forward to a morning of quiet enjoyment, studying the trees and admiring the varied foliage, richer in its autumnal tints than any I had ever seen in England or Scotland.

Just branching off from the spot where I had sat down to sketch, there was a narrow forest glade, at the extremity of which the trees seemed to mingle in one dense mass. Was it a shadow or a figure that I suddenly perceived in that leafy alley? I looked at first carelessly, and then with some anxiety, as I observed that it was a tall figure slowly advancing. Every moment the form became more distinct, and I speedily saw that it was that of an Indian. My first idea was to catch up my camp-stool and run as fast as I could back to the entrance of the forest, but I remembered how fleet of foot the Indians are, and that I would be easily overtaken if the advancing figure thought fit to exercise his tomahawk upon my unlucky caput, so I bravely remained to face the foe. The Indian slowly approached, and I perceived that the figure was that of an old man, with sharp, death-like features, and almost a skeleton, though the breadth across the shoulders told how powerful had been his frame when in the prime of life. He had the dignified bearing so often seen among the Red Indian chiefs, and the expression of his wan countenance

was that of deep melancholy. He walked steadily forward, and I rose from my camp-stool, and bowed my head respectfully to him as he came nearer. He stopped, and I looked narrowly at him to see if the dreaded tomahawk were forthcoming, but none was visible. His fleshless hands hung loosely by his sides, and there did not appear to be any weapon concealed in the folds of the blanket which was thrown so gracefully over one shoulder.

"Young pale face," he said-and his voice sounded as hollow as if it had come from the bowels of he earth, "what seek you here ?"

"I am a stranger," I replied, "come to visit your superb country, and I was admiring this beautiful wood."

"The name of stranger was once a claim upon the hospitality of our tribes," he said. "But now it can only awaken hatred in our minds. What have we not suffered from your race? They have robbed us of the land that the Great Spirit bestowed on us-they have driven us from our homes and our hunting-grounds-they have massacred us in their wanton cruelty, and annihilated whole tribes of our people; and the remnant whom their cupidity spared they are destroying with their fire-water poison. Could they not have lived in their own lands beyond the blue seas, and left to us our ancient soil?"

"They certainly had no right to usurp your country," I replied. "And on this vast continent there was room enough for them without disturbing you, since they found it needful to traverse oceans in search of gain or space which their own smaller countries denied to them."

The Indian was silent for a few moments, then he exclaimed, as he lifted one shrivelled arm and pointed upwards to the skies:

"Pale face! Yonder the Great Spirit dwells, and he has marked the wrongs that his people have suffered. Yonder the spirits of the dead can hear the groans wrung from the hearts of their persecuted brethrenthey can hear, and they can revenge! Stranger-mark my words!— you will live to see these multitudes of grasping whites, who have spread like wildfire over our once tranquil land, turn in wrath against each other; envy, and jealousy, and hatred, will spring up among them, and the tie that holds together that mighty nation, who are building their proud cities where the Red men chased the wild deer in freedom, and who are covering with their big canoes the deep lakes and broad rivers of our country, will burst like a bubble on the stream, the sway of their one great Father will be cast off, and, like the savage beasts of the forest, they will seek to prey upon each other. Pale face! The Indian prophet does not speak foolishly-he sees into the far future, and his words are true!"

A bird of bright plumage flew past at that moment, and I moved half round to look at it; when I turned back towards the Indian seer he was gone. How had he so suddenly disappeared? There was no sound of his footsteps on the crisp leaves beneath-there was no vestige of his receding figure anywhere around. Was he a creature of flesh and blood; or had a spirit who haunted the woods that had belonged to his Indian sires appeared before me? Whatever the apparition had been, I felt exceedingly awe-struck, and the loneliness around became so oppressive, that I hastened back to the busy interior of the log-house inn. I could hear nothing of any aged Indian who frequented that neighbourhood,