THE WIFE OF TWO HUSBANDS. THE TRIALS OF MARIAN RAYMOND. "How high he mounts! Hark, Henry; we hear him still. Sure then I can fancy that bird like Hope, soaring-soaring-soaring up, and up, till he reaches Heaven "Which he will never do;" responded Henry O'Donnell to his fair cousin. "Do you not see that hawk, tracing its pathway through the clouds, as the greyhound tracks the hare upon the earth?" Marian shaded her deep-blue eyes from the rays of the glorious sun. The song of the bird had ceased, as it changed its course, descending towards the meadows for the safety which the skies denied it. "What a glorious chase!" observed the young sportsman, as he watched the issue. "Fire, fire, dear Harry!' exclaimed Marian. "Ah! do now! the monster gains upon the bird; do fire." Nay, Marian, you know not what sport is," replied the youth, coolly and slowly raising his piece. "What a noble bird he is! "T is a pity to bring him down till the chase is ended." "Fire, Harry, fire," interrupted Marian, "oh, fire! There now, dear, dear Harry. Oh! the poor lark is struck. Fire, fire, if you love me!" Quick as lightning the mandate of death sent the hawk tumbling through the air; and, almost at the same moment, the little singing bird, wounded and struggling, fell on the grassy turf at the maiden's feet. "Had you fired sooner, the lark would have been saved!" she exclaimed, tenderly taking it in her hand. "Now it will never sing again! —its nest, too, I know is in the furze. What will become of its poor mate! Alas! my simile was indeed naught how unlike Hope is this dying bird!" Many tears flowed over Marian Raymond's blooming cheek as she watched the last agonies of the woodlark. Harry would have taken it from her, but she retained it to the last, and then raising a portion of the turf, placed it in its rest. The tears of youth are easily excited, and flowwithout long gathering in their shining fountains. Their source, at the time of sorrow, seems inexhaustible; yet they soon cease. April's sunshine and showers convey but little idea of the rapid succession of smiles and tears on a cheek that has only numbered sixteen summers. Marian, shaking back the raven curls that clustered over her white forehead, looked into her cousin's face, as cheerfully as if she had never known a moment's grief. years must "When I go to England, and join my_regiment, Marian," said Henry, as they proceeded homeward to Castle Raymond, "you will not, I hope, forget me, I return ere pass but you will still think of me, and be my little wife will you not?" Marian held down her beautiful head, and replied not. - "I wish you would promise never to love but me, and then I should go gladly to the wild wars, and return a general and a hero." "Return a hero, Harry, and I shall be satisfied." "No, Marian- -a general for your sake -a hero for my own." "Selfish boy!-so you prefer the greater glory for yourself." "Not so - - but you must never be a poor man's wife! Young as I am, I know enough of human nature to see that you will be courted-admired flattered and all more for your beauty than your fortune; although you are an heiress." A peculiar expression of scorn, amounting almost to bitterness, curled the maiden's lip, as she repeated -"Heiress! Oh, yes I shall doubtless be an heiress; but what, Harry, what shall I inherit! right noble blood-the cold-hearted cannot expel that from my veins; a spotless name -no act but mine own can tarnish that. What else? Alas! Harry, the mouldering walls of yonder castle, which to my ancestors was indeed a tower of strength, is now but a fitting abode for the wilder inhabitants of earth and air. My father, with that improvidence which you tell me characterizes the Irish nation, has never retrenched a single expenditure, even since the Ballanamoyle estate was irrecoverably mortgaged and at this moment I know that he is pressed by encumbrances on every side." "An English gentleman, if so circumstanced, would sell off a part to clear what remained." Marian shook her head.-"Dwelling so much among the English lately, Harry, has made you an alien to our feelings and our customs: here Í stand, the last descendant of the house of Raymond; the hills of four counties that were ours are in sight; two bright and fertilizing rivers paid us tribute; and many hundred men followed us, when needed, in camp and field: behold to what a handful our property, or, what is nominally our property, is reduced! the birch wood to the left the ruins of Castle Cloyne, with its almost deserted village, to the right the black bog, stretching in sluggish sloth along yonder hollow- and my own beloved mouldering castle, with its suffocated moat, its broken windows, its crumbling walls, and its ivy towers: - which, of all the objects I have mentioned, could my father part with?" "Sir Charles Barnett's agent is instructed to give any sum your father thought fit to demand for Castle Raymond." "And has the Sassenach!- -"exclaimed the proud Irish girl, who, not ten minutes before, was weeping, as if her heart would break, over a stricken lark-"has he presumed thus to insult us? If the Englishman were but here, I would look him into dust, and-" Ashes," interrupted her companion, with a want of tact, or rather feeling, which is pretty much the same in outward seeming, that paid no respect to her excited imagination. "My dear Marian, when I am a general, you shall come with me to England, where they value warm commodious houses more than old castles-and-but you are not angry with me again, sweet girl? Surely you know I would not willingly cause you a moment's pain; although I lament-lament most deeply, that your wild enthusiasm and uncalculating habits will lead to much misery." "Thank you for your prophecy, Henry." "Dearest Marian, I have named your only fault--and what a host of virtues do you possess to counterbalance that, which experience will soon eradicate, and leave you all perfection!" "It is very strange," replied Marian, after a pause, and with that delightful naïveté, which fades from the heart as the blush from the cheek, with this sad difference, that, when once departed, the blush returns, the feeling never; "it is very strange, that, while you see so many faults in me, think you perfect-you are certainly much wiser- and I know that, when |