affections. Ellen was the more desirous to make this appear, in consequence of some hints which Shaw had previously dropped, and which seemed to make a distinction between their destinies: the apprehensions which these careless speeches had excited were vague and undefined, but they were nevertheless strong, and not to be banished; they disturbed her confidence in her husband, and filled her with doubt and alarm.

Even without these sources of uneasiness, the lessons which experience began to teach were far from agreeable. The prospects from the windows of her residence began to pall upon the eye. Her husband was often absent, and the want of congenial society was severely felt. Without books or other auxiliaries, Ellen could make very little progress in Hindoostanee. She found constant employment at her needle irksome, and the ennui consequent upon idleness still more so; she had no opportunity of discovering how many Euro peans besides themselves were entertained at the nawab's court; she had only seen one, and she gathered that the rest were inimical to her husband's interests, and that he was manoeuvring to procure their dismissal. The man, whom Shaw introduced, proved to be a coarse, vulgar-minded adventurer, of the lowest class; his manners were presuming and offensive, and the conversations which passed between him and her husband, not only destroyed the respect which had lately been elicited by his conduct upon the river, but created the strongest sensations of surprise and disgust. She was amazed that she ever could have been deceived by the plausibility assumed at Bath. Now that the thin disguise was thrown aside, it seemed incredible that it could have veiled such unblushing effrontery; the few lingering remains of tenderness fled, and Ellen, with anguish of heart, felt that the performance of her duty towards a man whom she both feared and despised, would be a very painful task. His associate was still more hateful to her. This person scarcely attempted to conceal his designs; he evidently intended to supplant her hus band in her affections; his admiration was open and avowed, and when Ellen complained of the insults she received, Shaw sternly told her to beware of offending his best friend, and seizing every occasion to own the most profligate sentiments, the unhappy girl perceived that she must depend upon herself alone for protection against a libertine.

It would almost seem impossible to increase the misery of such a situation. How little had poor Ellen calculated upon the danger of entrusting her happiness to a stranger, upon the wretchedness which might await her in a foreign country! She had been told how highly women were prized in India; what objects of adoration they were to the other sex ; but it had never occurred to her that, to be cut off from feminine intercourse, to be thrown entirely into the society of men, or to mingle only with women depraved and deteriorated by constant association with male companions, would be one of the greatest miseries a refined and delicate mind could endure. She discovered to her cost that she had entertained too high an opinion of the "superior sex;" that she had taken them at their own valuation, and had most unjustly estimated the female character, as it exists pure and unadulterated, by the pernicious influence of unprincipled and profligate companions. It is said that women, accustomed to the almost exclusive society of men, learn to despise their own sex ; but this is only true with regard to the weak, the vain, and the licentious. Those who have sustained the dangerous ordeal, unspoiled by flattery, and unsubdued by the importunities which are but too often addressed to the most virtuous and unsuspecting, learn to appreciate the value of friends, to whom they can be affectionate, candid, and unreserved, without danger of Asiat. Journ.N.S.VOL.14.No.56. 2 K

being misconstrued or insulted. Ellen actually languished for female society, such as she had been accustomed to mingle with at home, not the Mrs. and Miss Woodwards, who thought of nothing but admiration and conquest, and who would use their influence over their male companions only to incite them to evil. There was nothing she so earnestly desired as to take counsel of some judicious female friend, and the most bitter tears she had yet shed flowed at reflecting upon the impossibility of obtaining so great a consolation.

Time passed on, unmarked by any particular events. Shaw daily became more abstracted and estranged; he had never made his wife acquainted with the precise nature of his position in India, and he was now less communicative than ever. Ellen never passed the precincts of the garden, and was reconciled to this seclusion by the assurance that she would incur the contempt of the people of the country if she should appear in public; her life became beyond measure dreary and monotonous, and she began to feel that restless desire for change of any kind, which the unhappy find it so difficult to resist. Wretched as her circumstances were, she soon discovered that they might be infinitely worse. Whatever were the objects which Shaw had pursued, since his residence at Lucknow, they had been accomplished; he and his colleague, Saunderson, remained masters of the field. Announcing his triumph, with an air of exultation, and casting an inexplicable look upon his wife, he left the

room.

He never returned again. Ellen had been in the habit of receiving presents from the prince to whose court her husband was attached, and the contents of the trays, which were laid at her feet, had excited her youthful curiosity. She had been wont to amuse herself with examining every new article, whether fruit, vegetable, or flower; but this feeling had passed away, and she was somewhat surprised by a larger attendance of servants, and a richer display of gifts on the morning after the day in which her husband had unaccountably absented himself. She did not, however, attach much importance to this circumstance, and the hope that Shaw, of whose movements she could learn nothing from the servants, would come back and explain why he had left her in so much incertitude and suspense, was only crushed by a letter from Saunderson. In this fatal billet, she was informed that her husband, despairing of getting rid of her in any other way, had sold her to the nawab, and that she had no alternative but to fly with him or to remain a prisoner for life, subjected to the most degrading species of slavery.

The first impulse of Ellen's heart was an indignant disbelief of so monstrous a calumny; but, after a moment's agonizing reflection, she found the corroborating circumstances too strong to leave a doubt that she had been betrayed and abandoned. Tearing Saunderson's letter into pieces, she returned it in a blank cover, determined to hold no communication with so base a wretch, and to trust to herself alone for deliverance from the evils which surrounded her. Night came, and with it those beautiful revelations which are withheld in the blaze and glare of a tropic day. A flood of moonlight was flung upon the garden, silvering the spires and kiosks, and deepening the shadows of the cypress trees, paving the terraced veranda in front with glittering ingots, as it penetrated the marble trellices, and dallying with the waters of the fountain. Ellen gazed long and fixedly upon this delicious scene; its tranquillity and loveliness could scarcely be surpassed; all was fair and captivating to the eye, yet to the mind what a den of nameless horror! Her thoughts flew back to the home of her youth; to the alders, and the rivulet, the mossy banks, and winding alleys, which she had disdained; pang after pang shot through her

heart, with the keenness of arrows, as she recalled the freedom and serenity she had so lightly quitted.

While returning in idea to this humble and now beloved home, painting to herself the joy with which she should tread the turf once more, even though in want and beggary, her eye caught a turban and a glittering vest advancing from the opposite side of the quadrangle. Starting from her chair, she uttered one long loud scream, and fell in convulsions upon the floor. The mental agony, withheld and restrained until human nature could bear no more, now found vent; she did not lose her senses, but, as if stretched upon the rack, and suffering the severest torture, she rent the air with her shrieks; exhaustion followed, and while incapacitated by mere weakness from the expression of her terror, the unhappy girl revolved the means by which she should escape a fate far worse than death. Self-destruction was always in her power; but she contemplated it only as a last resort; her situation appeared to be hopeless, but, with the demand for masculine fortitude, arose a determination to do and dare the utmost to extricate herself from-her present misery. Death lay in her pathway under many shapes; the climate, venomous reptiles, wild beasts, hunger and thirst; each and all threatened to bring her to the grave long before she could reach assistance; but she determined to run every risk rather than remain in the power of a man who, having purchased, would look upon her as his lawful property.

She had a drawing-box in her possession, and by staining her skin, and assuming the dress of one of her women, she felt assured that she could steal out of the palace unquestioned; for the rest, she must trust to chance, hiding in the woods by day, and journeying by night, until she should either meet with aid, or sink under the pressure of hardship and fatigue. Wild and almost impracticable as she felt her scheme to be, the forlorn hope which it held out of deliverance supported her in this desperate emergence: feigning severer illness than she really suffered, she revolved her plans over and over again, endeavouring to fortify her mind against the worst, and cherishing with melancholy fondness the faint expectation that she should survive to peace if not to happiness in England.

The heart which, in former days, had panted so wildly for adventure; the vivid fancy, which had painted toil and danger as things to be courted and braved, now, wounded and weary, though nerved to the utmost, found itself scarcely equal to struggle against the evils of its fate. The prospect of perishing miserably, in an attempt to make her way through an unknown and difficult country, was appalling. Europeans required a thousand facilities and conveniencies, which it would be quite impossible for her to command. Concealment must be her first object; she had too little acquaintance with the manners and language of the natives to hope to pass undetected, should she come in contact with them; and in avoiding the habitations of man, it seemed scarcely possible that she could support herself through the horrors of her pilgrimage. But she had only the choice of evils; death, in its worst form, seemed infinitely preferable to the life she must be condemned to lead, were she to remain in the power of a man who exercised despotic sway throughout the territory, and her mind was made up to suffer any thing rather than this.

The first gleam of hope, during a long and dreary season, shone out with a promise of deliverance upon Ellen's pillow on the third morning after her husband's abandonment. Upon waking from a restless slumber, her eye rested upon a well-known form. The ayah, whom Shaw had dismissed, stood by her bedside; and with tears of joy she learned that the desertion had not been

voluntary. Suspecting some evil design against her mistress, this faithful creature had followed her to Lucknow, and now presented herself at the moment of her utmost need. Ellen had no hesitation in communicating her plans to this woman; and giving herself up entirely to her guidance, she prepared with redoubled energy to take the step which would conduct her either to freedom or the grave.

Escape seemed to be so utterly impossible, that no precautions were taken against it; nothing was more easy than to dismiss the female attendants at an early hour. At midnight, with her hands, face, neck, and feet blackened, Ellen stood in a Hindoostanee dress in the veranda, taking a last look at the fountain, the cypress trees, the clustering oleanders, and those gorgeous pavilions, whence she had been so unwittingly the object of admiration of a man whose bare idea filled her with shuddering horror.

How different had been her first sensations on surveying this beautiful retreat! how gladly did she turn away from a place which had once appeared like the entrance to paradise! Drawing her veil over her face, she followed the ayah through several courts and gardens. In some of these, groupes of men were seated smoking, in others numerous recumbent forms were seen sleeping on the ground, but none questioned or interrupted the fugitives, and they reached a porter's door in safety. An express camel was in waiting; both mounted, and before the sun was up in the morning, Ellen and her companion had arrived at a place of refuge on the opposite side of the Ganges. The ride had been dislocating, but it took them out of the reach of immediate pursuit. Before sunset, they again set forward, but their conveyance was now somewhat more commodious; a rhut, or covered cart, drawn by bullocks, afforded room for both, and though suffering considerable inconvenience from want of air, and from the uneasy position which she was obliged to assume, Ellen was but too happy in the prospect of final deliverance to heed these annoyances. During every mile of her journey, she felt more and more convinced that she never could have accomplished it without the assistance which had been so mercifully vouchsafed to her. Under these alleviating circumstances, she was seized with fever upon the road, and far from all European medical aid, incurred the danger of falling a sacrifice to the fatigue she had undergone. While stretched on a pallet, in a small chamber of a caravanserai, Ellen, as she feebly gazed around her, noted the strange features of the scene, anxious, in the event of her survival, to retain the picture in her mind, and to dwell upon it with gratitude in that home, to which, in despite of her weakness, she still hoped she should return. The place was in a ruinous condition; through a gap in the wall of the quadrangle, a view of the adjacent country was visible, but the prospect was often obscured by clouds of dust, torn up by the hot winds, which now began to blow with frightful vehemence. A monkey was seated chattering on the broken door-post, while a vulture darted his keen eye through a hole in the roof, ready to descend whenever any thing that was eatable was left unwatched or unguarded. So long as Ellen's eye was upon the food which had been prepared for her, it was safe from the numerous marauders regarding it with wistful glances, but the instant her attention was diverted, it was gone: birds of prey perceive their opportunity in a moment, and the slightest relaxation of vigilance insures their success. Ellen thought upon the shy robins, which, after many experiments, she had lured to feed upon the crumbs at the breakfast-table, and smiled faintly as she contrasted those efforts with her present contest with the kites and crows.

Notwithstanding the numerous disadvantages attendant upon her situation,

youth and a good constitution prevailed, and Ellen arose from the couch, which she had at one time expected would have been her last resting-place. Her faithful companion, perceiving she was not equal to the fatigue of a bullock-carriage, procured palanquins, in which the remainder of the journey was performed in safety. Upon her arrival in Calcutta, Ellen, unwilling to make herself known, lest she should fall into the power of her profligate husband, secluded herself in a small house, which her diligent attendant hired for her; and here she began to ponder upon the means of getting back to England without making her name and circumstances public: rather a difficult achievement before the trade was thrown open.

While pondering over the chances of getting away in a French or Danish vessel, the ayah brought her intelligence of the intended marriage of her husband with Miss Woodward. It was to be celebrated at St. John's Church, and the whole of the society at the presidency were invited to be present. Concealment would now have been criminal, and though Ellen could feel little surprise at this new proof of her husband's villainy, it was her duty to prevent him from the commission of a crime, and to save Miss Woodward from a contract which could bring nothing but guilt and misery in its train. She had little time for hesitation, or for the organization of her plans; the ceremony was to take place that very evening, and before she could reach the house of Mr. Woodward, the bride was upon her way to the church. It was with some difficulty that a common palanquin, with hired bearers, and unattended by liveried peons, could force a passage through the multitude of silver maces which were brandished in the churchyard. The ceremony had commenced, and Ellen, making her way along the crowded aisle, approached the altar, and looking her unworthy husband steadily in the face, forbade its farther progress. Her pale cheeks, attenuated form, and the long white veil with which she was enveloped, gave her an unearthly appearance. Shaw, for a moment, fancied that the grave had yielded up its dead; but his presence of mind returning, he denied her claims upon him, and bade the clergyman proceed. His demands were, however, unattended to: the book was closed, and while some of the most influential persons gathered round the deserted wife, a discarded lover of Miss Woodward eagerly seized the opportunity to revenge himself upon his rival. After a few irritating words, the contending parties disappeared almost unnoticed through a side door into the churchyard. Presently a cry was heard without; surgical aid was called for, but before the wound could be examined, Shaw had breathed his last. The corpse was brought into the church; and the wedding guests, in consternation and dismay, bent silently over the bleeding body of the late exulting bridegroom. Happily, there were females present, who could sympathize with Ellen's dis tress; they hastened to her assistance, and led her away: though perhaps one of her severest trials, it was her last. Shaw's fate could not excite more than temporary regret; his widow found herself freed from a state of miserable bondage; he left sufficient property to place her in easy circumstances, and she was still richer in experience. Many painful lessons had taught her that retirement affords the best chance of happiness to a woman.

A long and tedious voyage rendered the thoughts of home still dearer: she flew back to the shades of Ashleigh, like a frightened dove; and when quietly re-established in that peaceful retreat, she could almost fancy she had awakened from a wild and troublous dream. The dusky form of the faithful ayah, who had accompanied her to England, and the sight of some splendid jewels, partly accumulated by Shaw, and partly presents to herself, served to assure