"No more my wounded crystals poured
Sweet numbers from the broken chord,
To greet the old ascending lord
That mock'd my scatter'd stones
Yet, though Despair was all around,
I watch'd and waited on the ground,
Still crouching, like the faithful hound
That guards its master's bones."

And so I hearken'd not in vain,
That morn on Tèbes' silent plain,
But learn'd the lesson to my gain,
Of watching, waiting, well!
To watch, with hope, whate'er betide,
To wait, with patience, and abide,
How long so e'er, the sinking tide,
How late so e'er, the swell.

To watch, however Time may strip,
Whatever whirlwinds I may reap,
Whatever cause to wake and weep,
My mornings as they fly.
To wait, however friends may fail,
However hostile hands assail,
However desperate is the tale
Of my humanity.

THE DEAD SECRET.

CHAPTER THE FIFTH. THE BRIDE AND
BRIDEGROOM.

UNDER the roof of a widowed mother,
Miss Mowlem lived humbly at St. Swithin's-
on-Sea. In the spring of the year eighteen
hundred and forty-four, the heart of Miss
Mowlem's widowed mother was gladdened
in the closing years of life by a small legacy.
Turning over in her mind the various uses
to which the money might be put, the discreet
old lady finally decided on investing it
in furniture, on fitting up the first floor and
the second floor of her house in the best
taste, and on hanging a card in the parlour
window to inform the public that she had
furnished apartments to let. By the
summer the apartments were ready, and
the card was put up. It had hardly been
exhibited a week before a dignified personage
in black applied to look at the rooms,
expressed himself as satisfied with their
appearance, and engaged them for a month
certain, for a newly-married lady and gentleman,
who might be expected to take possession
in a few days. The dignified personage
in black was Captain Treverton's servant,
and the lady and gentleman, who arrived in
due time to take possession, were Mr. and Mrs.
Frankland.

The maternal interest which Mrs. Mowlem
felt in her youthful first lodgers was
necessarily vivid in its nature; but it was apathy
itself compared to the sentimental interest
which her daughter took in observing the
manners and customs of the lady and gentleman
in their capacity of bride and bridegroom.
From the moment when Mr. and
Mrs. Frankland entered the house, Miss
Mowlem began to study them with all the
ardour of an industrious scholar who attacks
a new branch of knowledge. At every spare
moment of the day, this industrious and
inquisitive young lady occupied herself in
stealing up-stairs to collect observations, and
in running down-stairs to communicate them
to her mother. By the time the married
couple had been in the house a week, Miss
Mowlem had made such good use of her
eyes, ears, and opportunities that she could
have written a seven days' diary of the
lives of Mr. and Mrs. Frankland, with the
truth and minuteness of Mr. Samuel Pepys
himself.

But, learn as much as we may, the longer
we live the more information there is to
acquire. Seven days' patient accumulation
of facts in connection with the honeymoon
had not placed Miss Mowlem beyond the
reach of further discoveries. On the morning
of the eighth day, after bringing down the
breakfast tray, this observant spinster stole
up-stairs again, according to custom, to drink
at the spring of knowledge through the
keyhole channel of the drawing-room door.
After an absence of five minutes she
descended to the kitchen, breathless with
excitement, to announce a fresh discovery in
connection with Mr. and Mrs. Frankland to
her venerable mother.

"Whatever do you think she's doing
now?" cried Miss Mowlem, with widely
opened eyes and highly-elevated hands.

"Nothing that's useful," answered Mrs.
Mowlem, with sarcastic readiness.

"She's actually sitting on his knee!
Mother, did you ever sit on father's knee
when you were married?"

"Certainly not, my dear. When me and
your poor father married we were neither
of us flighty young people, and we knew
better."

"She's got her head on his shoulder,"
proceeded Miss Mowlem more and more
agitatedly, "and her arms round his neck—
both her arms, mother, as tight as can be."

"I won't believe it!" exclaimed Mrs.
Mowlem, indignantly. "A lady like her,
with riches, and accomplishments, and all
that, demean herself like a housemaid with
a sweetheart! Don't tell me, I won't believe
it!"

It was true though, for all that. There
were plenty of chairs in Mrs. Mowlem's
drawing-room; there were three beautifully
bound books on Mrs. Mowlem's Pembroke
table (the Antiquities of St. Swithin's, Smallridge's
Sermons, and Klopstock's Messiah
in English prose)—Mrs. Frankland might
have sat on purple morocco leather, stuffed
with the best horsehair, might have informed
and soothed her mind with archæological
diversions, with orthodox native theology, and
with devotional poetry of foreign origin—and
yet, so frivolous is the nature of women, she
was perverse enough to prefer doing nothing,
and perching herself uncomfortably on her
husband's knee!