a finger shall touch me, whether of foe or friend, until I stand distinctly out from amongst you an acquitted or a convicted man.' And with this he strode the room, unobstructed by any of the party; leaving them in a sort of consternation.

It was some time before discourse again found a channel, or anything like a regular tone. This, in fact, did not take place till the general, the colonel, and several of the senior officers had withdrawn. Old Lambert was greatly displeased with himself, and kept cursing the box. Farquhar's character and bearing had all along attracted the commanding officer's notice, and that of the more grave of the mess-room party; and these gentlemen, each and all, while most anxious that the snuff-box story might be satisfactorily cleared up, were conscious that under the influence of wine, they had too passively listened to Mr. feasible Vincent's speech and proposal, and had not exactly done as they would have been done by. One remarked, ‘For my part I did not notice that the general used a snuff-box at all since he came amongst us, and I have watched his movements pretty closely, being pleased with the veteran. Another observed that Lambert drank very freely be. fore he thought of his royal highness's present. And a third exclaimed, What if the box should be forthcoming in the morning, and be found after all in the old chap's keeping? A pretty figure we shall then cut in presence of the philosophic Frederick Farquhar !'

"While these sensible and moderate ideas were passing among a group of the cooler heads, ere they parted on parade ground, to roost for the night, and to reflect in the morning, some dozen of the warmer and more spiteful, who still kept possession of the mess-room, considering that the scene which had just been enacted warranted a sederunt of unusual endurance, strengthened their first impressions by means of more potations, and a series of new views. "What cool effrontery that fellow Farquhar can put on!' 'He must have been well trained to duplicity,' thought another. I hate him for his affected wisdom,' a third declared, and for his contemptuous hauteur, added a fourth. But the whole were of one voice with Mr. Vincent, who asserted that there 'could be no question of his guilt; for why did he shrink from the ordeal? This sapient young red-coat then solaced his associates that they would now get rid of one he never could endure, and that next morning he hoped they would be in early readiness to see how the drama would end.

"But what of our hero? will be asked. Did he not meditate self-destruc tion? Did he not perceive that his position was one of the most perilou and foreboding, and that before the sun of the morrow set, his name might be stamped with indelible infamy? He reasoned, you may be sure, not

lightly on his situation; he felt its delicacy, and foresaw what might be the direful result of a number of strangely small concurring circumstances, over which he had no control. He thought of the days long gone by, as described by painstaking chroniclers, when the ordeal consisted of boiling oil, into which the right hand of the accused was required to be plunged; when red-hot plough-shares had to be walked across; or when innocence was held to be established by the triumph of victory in armed fight and listed field. He thought of all these things, and half doubted whether he would not have preferred some such immediate to the night's anxieties. But white-robed innocence is a sweet consoler. He at last threw himself upon his couch, and was soon visited with refreshing sleep.

“The streaks of the morning light were beginning to lace the east, ere Frederick tossed himself upon his bed; nor were his slumbers allowed to be greatly prolonged. Indeed, at a much earlier hour than usual, was the square within the wings of the barracks studded with groups of officers engaged in earnest and animated discourse. An on-looker, a hundred yards distant, would have said that some extraordinary affair was afloat amongst these colloquists. But what was most remarkable of all characterized the quarter where Colonel Grant dwelt; for thither General Lambert was seen hurrying like one on a message where life and death were the only alternatives; and a few minutes afterwards both made their appearance, and forthwith sped towards Farquhar's apartment. The universal whisper now was, 'he has been wrongly accused'—or, 'the general has not lost the box at all, old fool;' joy on the part of some, but disappointment and chagrin on that of others being the ruling emotion. All, however, began to perceive that they had most falsely involved themselves in an affair, which now promised to take a far more serious turn in regard to their own personal interests than they had calculated upon, when under the influence of wine, and swayed by the oratory of Cornet Vincent; and, by the way, that prim gentleman felt that he had got himself into the queerest scrape of all, and that he was now the main object of speculation.

"Just at the moment when the several groups had collected into one mass, and the universal congratulation that met Vincent's ear was in such terms as these, 'Vincent, depend upon it, Farquhar will call you out; you were the most forward,'-the colonel and general, with Farquhar between them, arm in arm, were observed advancing, not exactly towards this mass, but to the main entrance of the barracks, where they halted for a few seconds, and then were joined by a fourth person, who was no other than the open-hearted Lancelot Sinclair. Little had he expected when he arrived at a late hour the night before at the hotel where General Lambert had taken up his lodg

reputation were concomitant. He many times fought and sometimes bled in the peninsula. He figured on the field of Waterloo; and covered with laurels, he retired to that beautiful spot at the foot of these rising grounds, a general in the service. His house is the centre of the first society in the land-of the scholar-of the accomplished in the arts and sciences-of the philanthropist and patriot. Many years ago, was his dear friend Sinclair summoned from this foot-stool, but not before he had proved himself a good landlord and an influential country gentleman. His widow, however, survives, and his children have grown into men and women. They have intermarried with the Farquhars, and taking the two families all in all, a lovelier subject, a theme for purer gratulation does not offer itself within the boundaries of this sea-girt isle, than that upon which we have been interested in the course of the story of the Ordeal."

DIRGE OF YOUNG NUNS.

FOR A DEPARTED SISTER.

Why should we weep-why should we weep?
Why tho' our Sister's spirit's fled ?

She lies like one but wrapped in sleep,

Not in the ice-shroud of the dead.

A smile is on those gentle lips—

Her gold locks fall across her brow—

She lies as one entranced in bliss,

An angel form undimm'd by woe.

Why should we sigh-why should we sigh?
Her soul is surely happy now;

For that the soul doth never die,
Is what she taught us long ago.
The vesper hymn she sung last night,
Her soft voice doth breathe above;
Yestreen she watched the taper light--
To night the blaze of endless love.

Why should we mourn-why should we mourn!
Her corse we bear to mother earth-
Her soul hath sought its joyous bourne-
The casket's lost its gem of worth.

And dust to dust each voice shall chant,

Each hand shall strew her grave with flowers,
Each voice beseech the saints to grant

As pure a life be each of ours.

OLD WOMEN.

WHEN We compare our present days with the olden tmes,-society as it is now constituted with society as it formerly existed, the civilization of to-day with that of anterior periods, it may be easily perceived that something is wanting, some link broken, that once more firmly fixed the chain by which society should be bound. What is that link?

Old women!

It is not that the fountain of youth is yet discovered, or that women preserve their beauty or their form with greater care against the assaults of the old greybeard Time ;--no, nature never abrogates her laws. How comes it, therefore, that those useful blessings of humanity-those kind-hearted spinster aunts, Martha and Mary, become nearly obsolete beings of poetic imagination, mentioned to please the rising generation, like fairy tales or nursery ballads, of what was or might have been, but what can never again recur? The mystery is this: women decay and die-"the worms crawl in and the worms crawl out," much the same as formerly, but with this difference, that previous to death, women now-a-days grow no older, at least in habits and outward appearances; there is one dominating fashion for all, without distinction of person or age; that particular mania pervades all classes of peasons,-all faces and forms are alike adorned,—youth and age blended in the same fantastic garb of fashion's folly.

In days of yore, to grow old was an art; to-day it is only a misfortune When a female, according to her physicial and mental qualifications, had passed the rubicon of youth, she bravely took her stand in the rank of old women; merely seeking necessary resolution to contemplate the sight of old age, without attempting to conceal its approach; and took upon herself with praiseworthy resignation, the highly honourable and extremely useful task of constituting herself the directress of some important mission in

her sphere of life, likely to improve and instruct the rising condition of the youth around her.

Old ladies, then, very properly exercised considerable influence in society. Youth respected and loved them, they were beings of å neuter sex, preserving no more of their youthful recollections than the grace and habit of pleasing, in the lessons they gave, and the example they set.

What can be pictured more beautiful, more touching than a cheerful old woman? None but a monster in human form could look with indifference upon an aged mother, or think upon her loss without a pang. Who could be so lost to every good feeling, as to contemplate the resignation of a pious old age, without loving and respecting that countenance, wrinkled with the care and sorrow of maternity; or listen unmoved to her gentle words and soft instruction, dictated from a heart unmoved by passion's storms?

We have now no more old women, professedly so calling themselves-there merely exist certain beings of the feminine gender, who live a life of useless folly, and die in obscurity, without a leading virtue to emblazon their tomb, or a pleasing recollection to perpetuate their memory.

After ten or a dozen years of bustle and agitation, a female of our present day, turns soured by the advance of time, and regretting the pleasures of by-gone hours, commences a perpetual warfare against those who are just launched in the career she can no longer pursue. She envies youthful nature, and vainly endeavours to copy its graces. No longer capable of sustaining a leading station in the ranks of society for beauty or wit, she sinks into the humiliating grade of those who condemn them both. She yet makes a desperate effort to look what time has shorn her of,-she still makes up, youthfully bedizened for the ball or soirée,—still affects the light-hearted gaiety and elastic step of eighteen ; but red and white, false locks and deceptive forms, cannot renovate her early charms, or win back the admiration she once so fondly courted. The mask drops, and instead of displaying a woman of mature and grave habits, a painted sepulchre stands in sight; and soon that female reaches neglected decrepitude, and sinks into oblivion, without the consolation of religion or the sympathy of friendship.

Why is it that our young women but too frequently thoughtlessly plunge into the vortex of folly or vice, totally neglecting the duties of their sex, in the various phases of a woman's life? It is because there are no longer any old women to guide their steps, to praise and encourage them in the right road, to forgive their youthful errors, to reward their good condut, and to instil those precepts alone acquired by worldly experience.

Why are so many young females blamed, and their characters but too often unjustly compromised? Because their actions are not maintained