The companions were close behind, each having secured two or three of the birds. In a moment, they threw down their game, and with Winder, drew around Maxwell, resolved to defend themselves and him to the last.

"Load your pieces, quick!" said Jim, a man of courage and presence of mind, that would have fitted him for a higher, and more honourable station.

His order was instantly obeyed.

"Now stand firm and wait for my orders."

All around was as silent, as if nothing had broken the midnight stillness of the forest;-the poachers waiting the attack, the game-keepers on the look-out for the trespassers.

Suddenly the forest was again lit up with a blaze of light, and the sharp crack of three guns was followed by as many balls whizzing close by the ears of our party of poachers."

"Now give it to them in return," cried Jim, and four pieces sent their leaden messengers in the direction of the game-keepers.

"Now stand firm, for they are coming."

A desperate conflict ensued, in which Maxwell joined, but a blow from the butt-end of a piece laid him insensible on the ground. It was nearly ten minutes before the party of poachers were able effectually to beat off the resolute gamekeepers. Finally, however, they were forced to retire, one with a broken arm, and all more or less injured.

Winder, assisted by his three companions, lifted the still insensible body of Maxwell, and proceeded slowly homeward with it; the former deeply repenting of his folly, and resolving, if safely through this adventure, never again to trouble Wareham forest, or his own head, about the injustice of game laws. It was broad daylight before they reached the cottage of Winder, whither he deemed it most prudent to convey the body, and there use some efforts to restore animation, before alarming his family.

Hour after hour the three women, we left in the cottage, sat listening in suspense and painful eagerness, for some sound indicating the return of Winder and Maxwell; but they waited and listened in vain; and when the gray dawn, cheerless and cold, came stealing in at the window, their hearts grew sick and faint with fear and uncertainty.

"Come, let us go home, Catherine," said the mother; "perhaps James is there. We may have done wrong in staying here until morning."

Catherine obeyed mechanically, and moving to the door, slowly opened it.

"Merciful Father!" she exclaimed, suddenly, and then sprung away with a quick bound.

The two women left behind crowded into the cottage door, and saw close by, borne by three men, the body of a fourth, which they instantly recognized by the dress, to be that of Mr. Maxwell.

"Is he dead? is he dead?" was the mother's eager inquiry, as they bore her insensible son into the cottage, and placed him on a chair.

"No-no-he is not dead; only a little stunned, and will soon recover," Winder said hastily, though his heart misgave him. "Here, Mary, run quick for the doctor-run for your life!"

Mary glanced away on the instant. Winder next mixed hastily a tumbler of brandy and water strong, and moistened the lips of Maxwell. But he showed no sign of returning animation. While all was yet confusion, Jim exclaimed in a hurried voice.

"See!-see!—the fiends are after us. They have tracked us by Maxwell's blood."

All eyes were instantly turned in the direction indicated, and there, sure enough, were four men armed, approaching the cottage. Winder sprung to the door, and locked and double bolted it: while Jim and Tom proceeded hastily to hide away the game, which they had still retained, the guns and every evidence of their recent unlawful work.

Just as the exclamation of the poacher arrested the attention of all, Catherine, whose hand was on the wrist of her insensible husband, felt his pulse give a single bound. Hope, that had well nigh forsaken her, now sprung up in her bosom; and with this hope, came a new and awful fear. Discovery would bring upon her husband the penalty of the law, and disgrace and separation follow. For a few moments her senses reeled. But distinct consciousness returned, and she stood trembling by her husband's side, her face pale and agitated, glancing out upon the officers of the law, who had paused some distance from the house, seemingly at fault. Sometimes they would look long at the cottage, and even make a movement to approach it, when the heart of the wife would grow still in her bosom; then they would pause, and her heart would begin to flutter. At last, they moved slowly in an opposite direction, and were soon out of sight.

"Heaven be praised!" murmured Catherine, glancing upwards-while the tears stole silently down her pale cheeks.

Three or four feeble pulsations were now distinctly seen by her, and in the silence of her heart she lifted up a more fervent expression of thankfulness.

Half an hour after, the doctor came in, and proceeded at once to bleed Maxwell. With the flow of blood, animation returned. He then examined a rifle shot wound in the right breast, or side. The ball was soon detected, flattened against one of the ribs, and removed; and then Mr. Maxwell was conveyed to his own house.

"Well, James, what do you think of the game laws now?" said Colin Jones, laughing, about three weeks afterward, as he entered the chamber of his friend Maxwell, now nearly recovered from the effects of the wound.

"I think that it is best to let them operate quietly," Maxwell said, laughing in turn; "I've been thinking a good deal in the last few weeks, about eternity and Botany Bay, from both of which I have made a narrow escape, and have come to the conclusion to run no more such risks in future."

“ A good resolution of course, I will say. And you will say the same, will you not, Mrs. Maxwell?"`

Catherine's eyes filled with tears, and she could not reply. Maxwell and Jones both observed and felt deeply this silent but expressive token of her recent sufferings and her fervent love.

"Do not upbraid me with your tears, Catherine," he said, turning upon her a look of tenderness, such as had years before warmed her heart. "I believe I am not only thoroughly sensible of the wrong I have done you, and myself, and all connected with me, but am fully resolved to put away from me as evil, habits of idleness, which I have allowed to strengthen in the last year or two-habits which have brought me in contact with men of bad characters-and well-nigh ruined me for ever."

66

May heaven confirm you in your good resolution!" said his wife, earnestly.

"Amen!" responded the husband to her pious ejaculation. "Thus may good be brought out of evil," Colin added. "Conscious now, from sad experience of your own weakness, you will be more watchful in future, and from resisting the first inclination, be ever kept secure from going astray."

"Most sincerely do I trust, that thus I may be kept. And, as some one has quaintly said, that an unoccupied mind is the devil's workshop, I will try and keep myself busied, as I have been in former years; and then I know all will go right."

"All must go right," Colin said, rising up, and bidding his friend good evening.

"And I shall be so happy again!" Catherine said, tenderly, as Colin closed the door after him, drawing her arm at the same time around her husband's neck, and kissing him.

"And I shall be happy too!" he replied, leaning his head upon her shoulder-"happier far than ever I was in the wild and evil pleasures that I followed for a short time so madly." And they were happy; for the painful lesson was never forgotten by Maxwell. It was a long time, however, before the old lady, his mother, could get over the disgrace attached to the idea of her son having been a poacher. It was in vain that he tried to show her that it had been with him a matter of principle to oppose unjust laws. In her mind, this was all an attempt at mystification; a poacher was a thief; and to think that her son had been a thief was dreadful.

ON the sunny, sunny bank

Is the cottage where we dwell,
And we sip the sparkling water
From the bucket in the well!

The ripple of our river,

The warble of our bird,

Are the sweetest sounds that ever
Round a cottage-home were heare
And summer's smile is brightest
In our blue and balmy air!
And the maiden's step is lightest
On the bonnie banks' of Ware.
Yes! the cottage on the hill

Is the cottage where we dwell,
And we wander at our will,

Through the woodlands in the deli.
We shall miss them every minute,
When we leave them for the town,
For the court, with one tree in it,
Where the tall brick buildings frow r

We shall miss the smiling ray,
In the morning, on the hill'

We shall miss the winding way
Through the meadow by the rill!
We shall miss the colour'd leaves,
Where the pleasant woods are bright
Where the changeful antumn weaves
His braids of tinted light.

A GREAT reverse of fortune, one of those catastrophes which bankers meet with every day, precipitated Madame de Pons from the height of a most brilliant position in society to the most humble fortune. Events of this nature are so common, and, moreover, so sudden, that it is by no means a rarity in our times to receive an invitation to a grand party in the Rue de la Paix, and to pay your visit to the prison of St. Pelagie.

The splendid salons of Madame de Pons were reduced to one small garret in the Marais, and yet it was too large for the number of those who came to share her bad fortune.

In Paris matters are settled thus: you give parties-it makes you one of this world; I make a part of this worldyou give me pleasure, I give you my company; when your supper is over, and your wax-lights extinguished, we are , quits; for, after all, your party is but a party. In return for your invation of me, I have the right of complaining, if the music at your concert is bad, that I have been your dupe; if the invitation was to a ball-that it was very tedious.

After the death of her husband, who blew out his brains as a compensation to his creditors, Madame de Pons found her circle of acquaintance much reduced. For all that, the Count de Marigny, who had been an old friend of M. de Pons, remained still the friend of his wife.

Madame de Pons was a fine woman. M. de Marigny was a man of distinguished appearance; he was the indispensable at every ball, the most elegant centaur in the Bois de Boulogne, tied the best neckcloth, and wore the finest diamonds-in fact, he was a man of the first fashion. As for the rest, nobody could tell where he obtained the means for this luxurious splendour; nobody knew anything of his ancestors, nor his