tendant in silent abstraction, watching the countenance of his patient.

"What," said Lorraine, addressing them, "what has happened to this poor creature; for the little boy who conducted us hither can give us no account beyond her having met with an accident ?"

"Sir," said the surgeon, "she has had the misfortune to be dreadfully crushed by the blasting of a piece of rock, and is terribly mangled."

Here the youth on the side of the bed waved his head and body in bitterness of sorrow, and wept aloud; upon which the sufferer, in all her agony, laid her hand upon his arm, and looked at him with a fondness that drew tears from those who witnessed the expression of so much tenderness. After a little while the mother, accompanied by Oswald, entered the apartment, and, throwing herself by the side of her daughter, evinced the deepest sympathy and grief as she gazed upon the tortured countenance of her child.

"What, what, my dear Mary," she exclaimed, "has happened to thee? I left thee so well and so cheerful but a few hours since, and to return so quickly and with such alarm is

almost too much for me. Edward!" said she, turning to the distracted young man, “do tell me what it is that ails ye both ?"

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My good friend," said the surgeon, "let me tell you in a few words that your daughter, passing down below the hollows of the quarry, was unexpectedly struck by a mass of blasted rock, and is severely bruised;" and he betrayed the extent of his fears by the touching manner in which he spoke.

"How," said she, "struck by the stone? What were there none to warn stragglers of their danger ?"

"Alas, alas!" sobbed the distressed Edward, "the fault, the fault is all mine! I thought nobody could be near-I gave no signal — I set no warners, - and I, yes I have killed her. Oh Mary, Mary! how I wish I could suffer all this instead of you!"

"Tell me,” said the mother, addressing the surgeon, "tell me, is she in danger?"

"That question," said the afflicted girl, making a painful effort to speak, “ "my dear mother, I can best answer. I feel, aye, I am sure, quite sure, that it is all over with me!" Here Edward on the one side, and the mother

on the other, caught each hold of the sufferer's hands, which they pressed with the greatest fervour, and bathed with floods of tears. " I wanted," she continued, "to take Edward by surprise at his work I went to carry something to refresh him, and something, too, I had to say to him; but it is all over! Mother, thank, thank you for the care you have always taken of me, you have always been kind, very kind,

-

and I hope you have never thought me ungrateful ?"

"Never," would the agonized parent have uttered, could her tongue have spoken what her countenance expressed.

The sufferer, now turning her head, added"Good bye, Edward; don't take on so hardly; don't I know that you would rather die before I should suffer? When I am gone, comfort my poor mother, (here her fortitude forsook her,) and take care of James," turning her moistened eyes to the corner of the room, where the poor little fellow had squeezed himself with his face turned to the wall to hide his woful countenance. "Let me be laid in that corner of the church-yard where we have so often walked together, waiting for the Sabbath service.

-God bless you all, and you, kind strangers, who show such pity for us-bless, bless you all, and oh! may my heavenly Saviour have mercy upon me!"-Here her voice failed her, and after one or two slight distortions, the tenderhearted Mary breathed no more!

The travellers, with deep affliction, shortly took leave of the inmates of the cottage, and proceeded, without exchanging more than a few words, to the Inn at Matlock, where, as soon as they were shown into their apartments, they separated. Mr. Lorraine, from the window of the sitting-room, gazed upon the romantic scenery before him, and he looked upon it with feelings of interest heightened by the impressions of melancholy, which his mind had received from the wretchedness he had witnessed. Maria in her chamber sought composure, from meditating upon that volume which can bind up the broken-hearted, and pour balm into every wound Oswald, with the view to soften that despondency and gloom which these circumstances had occasioned, by diverting his mind with different reflections, climbed the hills above the village, and dived into the dark recesses of the caverns, where, instead of shaking off the depression

which hung upon his spirits, he only increased it by the silent and dismal scenes around him, scenes that were assimilated to nothing but the grave. Never till that day had he witnessed a real scene of death; he knew of calamities and human sufferings only by description; he had never been thrown into the way of those who laboured under bodily afflictions; what he had seen at the cottage, therefore, had quite unnerved him. He began to reflect, and to feel that he himself was of the same nature, and liable to the same calamities with those whom he had so lately beheld distressed, and with her whom he had seen suddenly removed in the very morn of life and vigour, from this transitory state. She who had risen that day full of expectation, and with the prospect of long-continued happiness before her, was now, ere the setting of the same sun, inanimate,—the residue of dust and ashes! She who had built upon the hope of repairing to a home of her own, in the company of one she loved dearly as her life, was now to be consigned to the dread regions of darkness, and to be laid in the cold grave, a prey to the reptiles of the earth! And yet he reflected,— "she betrayed no fear of dissolution; she la