never was effected. How far this circumstance
may be connected with the date of the
first portent, the very night of the young
man's death, or whether that coincidence was
simply accidental, is matter for conjecture.
The old lady, his relative, who afterwards
visited Clairon, and told her a tale calculated
to fill her with superstitious dread, may
herself have been the maid-servant's employer
for some similar purpose; or (which is at
least equally probable) the tale may have had
nothing whatever to do with the sound, and
may have been perfectly true. But all
experience in such cases assures us that the
love of mischief, or the love of power, and
the desire of being important, would be
sufficient motives to the maid for such a
deception. The more frightened Clairon was,
the more necessary and valuable her maid
became to her, naturally. A thousand
instances of long-continued deception on the
part of young women, begun in mere folly,
and continued for the reasons just mentioned,
though continued at an immense cost of
trouble, resolution, and self-denial in all
other respects, are familiar to most readers
of strange transactions, medical and
otherwise. There seem to be strong grounds for
the conclusion that the maid was the
principal, if not the sole agent in this otherwise
supernatural part of this remarkable story.

THE WAYSIDE WELL.

O! THE pretty wayside well,
Wreathed about with roses,
Where, beguiled with soothing spell,
Weary foot reposes.

With a welcome fresh and green,
Wave thy border grasses,
By the dusty traveller seen,
Sighing as he passes.

Treads the drover on thy sward,
Comes the beggar to thee,
Free as gentleman or lord
From his steed to woo thee.

Thou from parching lip dost earn
Many a murmured blessing;
And enjoyest in thy turn
Innocent caressing.

Fair the greeting face ascends,
Like a naiad daughter,
When the peasant lassie bends
To thy trembling water.

When she leans upon her pail,
Glancing o'er the meadow,—
Sweet shall fall the whispered tale,
Soft the double shadow!

Mortals love thy crystal cup;
Nature seems to pet thee,—
Seething Summer's fiery lip
Hath no power to fret thee.

Coolly sheltered, hid from smirch,
In thy cavelet shady,
O'er thee in a silver birch
Stoops a forest lady.

To thy glass the Star of Eve
Shyly dares to bend her;
Matron Moon thy depths receive,
Globed in mellow splendour.

—Bounteous Spring! for ever own
Undisturbed thy station,—
Not to thirsty lips alone
Serving mild donation.

Never come the newt or frog,
Pebble thrown in malice,
Mud, or withered leaves, to clog
Or defile thy chalice;

Heaven be still within thy ken,
Through the veil thou wearest,—
Glimpsing clearest, as with men,
When the boughs are barest!

A BUNDLE OF EMIGRANTS' LETTERS.

A SCHEME has been propounded by MRS.
CHISHOLM, a lady to whose great exertions in
reference to the emigration of the poor,
especially of her own sex, the public is much
indebted,—for the establishment of what it is
proposed to call ' A Family Colonisation Loan
Society.'

The design is based, in the main, upon three
positions. First ' that it is melancholy to
reflect that thousands of British subjects should
wander about, more like spectres than beings
of flesh and blood; and that hundreds should
die from starvation, while our vast colonies
could provide abundantly for them.' Secondly,
' that in England a society is much needed,
the great moral aim of which should be to
check crime, by protecting and encouraging
virtue.' Thirdly, 'that the zealous endeavours
of the charitable, combined with the
industrious and frugal efforts of the working
classes themselves,' could accomplish great ends
in the way of emigration.

For these leading considerations, it is
proposed that the projected society should assist
persons desiring to emigrate, by loans of
money for two years or longer without
interest. That these loans should be made
to friendly parties or groups of approved
individuals, acquainted with the character of
each other, and becoming jointly and severally
responsible for the loans made to them. That
agents should be appointed in different parts
of Australia, to maintain a general knowledge
of the emigrants so assisted, and a general
communication with them; and that the
advances should always bear a certain proportion
to the amount of the funds raised by the
emigrants themselves, or by their friends in
the Colonies, at the time of their making
application for assistance to quit this country.

The re-uniting of various members of one
family when some have emigrated, while
others have been left at home; and the
removal of the difficulty too often found in
raising sufficient funds to effect this re-union,
is one important object of Mrs. Chisholm's