"Is he coming?"

Lady Glenham hid her face in her hands. "Shall I see my love again?" she continued, taking the hand of her father.

"Not on earth, my poor child," he answered, "but above, in heaven, he is among the angels."

"Ah! I remember," she said, wildly gazing around her. "He is dead, my poor Reginald is dead. I feel a cold sensation here," she continued, laying her hand upon her bosom.

Their hearts bled for her, and the courier walked towards the window, and hid his face in his hands.

Her mother then attempted to lead her from the room.

"Oh, no! oh, no!" she exclaimed in a loud and piteous voice, and then turning to the courier, "Where is the body?"

"It has, no doubt, arrived by this time," he said, mournfully.

"May I see it?" she continued, throwing up her arms. "Nay, refuse me not. It is my last request. I must see it."

She spoke so fiercely, even in the midst of her terrific and overwhelming grief, that Langham replied

"You shall be obeyed, poor lady."

The poor distracted creature then burst into tears, murmuring, "Oh, this is cruel, indeed."

Presently, the door opened, and four men entered, carrying a bier, over which was thrown something dark and massive.

They laid it on the floor.

"Remove the covering," exclaimed Sir Richard Glenham.

The order was obeyed. They gathered round it. There lay Sir Reginald Pugeley in the flower of his youth and manly beauty, but cold and dead. All marks of blood had been removed by the thoughtful courier, and he only looked deadly pale-as if he slept.

The young widow cast up her eyes to heaven. The angels might have wept at her extreme anguish of soul. Then with a moan-a low painful moan, she fell upon the corse, and throwing her arms round the neck, she kissed the pale brow, the cheeks, the lips, and bathed them with the bitterest tears that woman ever shed. Now she took the cold hand and pressed it to her breast, gazing all the while on the beloved face, beautiful still in death.

Then falling on her knees, she exclaimed passionately

Mabel Pugeley never forgot her first love. She did not marry again, although she received offers from some of the richest and most fascinating men in England. She did not die, but lived to his memory and for her parents, both of whom she survived; indeed, report tells us that she lived to be ninety years of age.

The poor for many miles around blessed her and prayed for her. She was an excellent woman-pious, loving, and charitable. Every morning of her life, it was her custom to wander to the precincts of the old well, where she could sit for hours upon its banks, where grew, under her tender care, surpassingly beautiful flowers of the Creator's finest workmanship. It has ever since been called Dame Pugeley's well.

Reginald was laid in the burial ground of the old cathedral, and every morning, in summer or winter, Mabel might be seen hovering there. Then she would fall down upon that cold tomb, and kiss the stones that covered her beloved, and water them with her tears the purest, the sweetest tears of deepest love. Then she would strew flowers upon that old grey tablet, overgrown with moss and time-worn flowers, gathered by her own hand from the cherished banks of Dame

Pugeley's well. Yes! she did this, young women of the present day, when she was aged, feeble, tottering, and her hair silvered over by the hand of time.

When Mabel Pugeley died, the last words she ever spoke were as follows :-" Reginald, loved of this aged heart, yet fresh in the remembrance of thee, I am coming. I shall see thee again. I will lay me in thy bosom, and be happy ever more. Reginald, I have loved thee until death." She then passed away, and is now, may it please the Almighty, one of the purest and brightest angels in heaven. Mabel was laid by the side of the loved of her heart, and her brother David, himself an old man, erected a monument above them, on which was inscribed in letters of gold

"Here repose the ashes of Sir Reginald Pugeley, who died on the field of battle, aged five-and-twenty."

Then lower down upon the marble,

"Mabel, his beloved and faithful wife, aged ninety-two."

IN our last Number we left our notice of the work by Sir John Mc Neill, at the period immediately preceding the war between Russia and Turkey, which was terminated by the treaty of Adrianople. The history of the events of that time furnish the materials for a romance of history at which we can only briefly glance. England had been the ally of Turkey. England had dreaded the ambition of Russia and her tendency to interfere in the affairs of the Porte; yet England, by a series of false steps, had prepared the way for Russian victory over the Sultan. The English ministry, in order to prevent Russia from interfering in the affairs of Greece, joined in a treaty which bound England to interfere in conjunction with Russia. That treaty was kept secret, and thus Russia was afforded the opportunity of forcing upon Turkey the convention of Akerman, in which it was stipulated between Russia and Turkey, that the Czar should abstain from interference. Then came the battle of Navarino, by which the naval power of the Sultan was destroyed; and then England and France standing by saw that very convention of Akerman, which had been obtained by a fraud, made the ground of a Russian invasion of European Turkey. The war which followed Turkey sustained alone, unaided by the great Western powers, for how could England and France-committed to joint hostilities with Russia against Turkey in the Greek waters-help the Porte, who had thus become their enemy, against Russia, who had been transformed into their ally? The change was as magical, and to those who were not behind the scenes as inexplicable, as one of the changes of a pantomime. The very steps which were taken to prevent Russia from making aggressions upon Turkey, became the means through which Russia was enabled to aggress, without England and France being able even to remonstrate. This was one of the greatest

triumphs ever achieved by Russian diplo

macy.

That war, Sir John Mc Neill tells us, was "the most disastrous in its consequences in which Turkey had yet been engaged;" but when Sir John Mc Neill writes thus, he forgets to tell us the causes which led to that result. We know now that if the Turks had not been deceived, that war would have been more disastrous to Russia than it was to Turkey. Russia, in 1828, assembled an army of 216,000 men in the principalities. Weakened as Turkey was by the disaster of Navarino and the reforms of Sultan Mahmoud, who had destroyed the Janissaries without having time to form a sufficient army on the European model, the power of Russia was broken by the resistance offered by the Moslem. For a whole campaign, the Muscovites were baffled, kept at bay and beaten back by a handful of Turkish regulars, with a loss of more than 50,000 men. In the following year, General Diebitsch managed to cross the Balkans and reach Adrianople, but when he arrived there he was at the head of only a miserable remnant of his great army. Not more than 25,000 men followed the Russian standard, and even of those a large proportion, it is said as many as 18,000, were so worn down by fatigue and sickness, that they were not capable of bearing arms. The Russian general, instead of being in a condition which would justify him in bearing himself as a victor, and exciting a treaty ruinous and degrading to Turkey, was in reality on the verge of destruction. The Turks were strong enough to have annihilated the remnant of his force, but diplomacy came to his aid. His real condition was carefully concealed from the Sultan, who was advised by the representatives of England to conclude a peace in order to avert the danger of a Russian advance on Constantinople. That danger was a purely visionary one. The Russian army could not have maintained

itself in the position it occupied, could not even have effected a safe retreat, and of course could not have pushed forward through a hostile country; but deceived alike by friends and foes, the Sultan submitted, when victory was within his grasp, and the treaty of Adrianople was concluded. By that treaty the Emperor Nicholas "acquired Anapa and Paty, with a considerable extent of coast on the Black Sea, a portion of the pashalic of Akhilska, with the two fortresses of Akhilska and Akhilkillak, and the virtual possession of the islands formed by the mouth of the Danube; stipulated for the destruction of the Turkish fortress of Georgiova, and the abandonment by Turkey of the right bank of the St. George's branch of the Danube to the distance of several miles from the river; attempted a virtual separation of Moldavia and Wallachia from Turkey by sanitary regulations, intended to connect them with Russia ;" and besides other impositions, saddled Turkey with a large indemnity, for the payment of which Silistria, Moldavia, and Wallachia were retained as pledges. This done, Russia exerted herself to procure the independence of Greece, and when that was effected, Count Capo d'Istria, who had been a Russian minister, was named president. Let the reader pause at this point for a moment, and trace back to the cause from which all these calamities to the Porte proceeded. It was the alliance of Turkey with England and France, and the co-operation of the two latter powers with Russia, which was the starting point of the disasters we have recorded. Without help Turkey would not have been worse off, but might have been better able to defend herself.

From the date of the treaty of Adrianople to the year 1833, Russia did not commit any act of open hostility against Turkey. The Czar in that period turned his attention toward Persia, and the opening up of a road to British India, but at the same time did not neglect any opportunity of exciting discontent and insurrection among the subjects of the Porte. At length the time came which brought the opportunity for another step forward. The Sultan was obliged to seek foreign aid against his rebellious and victorious vassal the Pasha of Egypt. Russia offered assistance, but the Sultan, suspecting the sincerity of the Muscovite, applied to France and England. These two nations, it will be recollected, were

willing enough to interfere against the will of Turkey in 1827; what was the course they took in 1833, when Turkey besought help? Hear Sir John Mc Neill:- "The unwise penuriousness of our policy had reduced our fleet to a scale inadequate to the protection of the national interest at any time, and still less in the midst of the troubles and commotions with which we were then surrounded. One portion of our meagre navy was employed in Portugal, another on the coast of Holland, and when the existence of Turkey was at stake, we had only a few frigates in the Mediterranean. France was almost equally powerless, and the Sultan urged his suit in vain to governments which had not the means of granting it. Left without any other alternative, he accepted the proffered aid of Russia, and a fleet and army, prepared with almost incredible speed, found themselves for the first time in the Bosphorus." The simplicity of Sir John in this latter sentence is amusing. He writes as if when the time came the Russian fleet and army had to be prepared. More astute politicians infer that they were ready for the contingency which had been prepared beforehand. Be that as it may, there is the fact; Turkey was again thrown into the hands of Russia. The part of the affair which would be the most ridiculous if it were not the most deplorable, is however yet to be told. Russia did not attempt to coerce the Pasha of Egypt; France and England were eventually obliged to interfere for that purpose, while Russia only used her armaments for the purpose of squeezing out of the Sultan the famous treaty of Unkiar Skelessi. This was a defensive alliance by which Turkey was bound to afford material aid to Russia in the event of her being attacked, and Russia undertook to protect Turkey against any enemy who might attack her;" but the most important portion was that stipulated for in a secret article, by which "Turkey, in lieu of military assistance to Russia, undertook to close the Dardanelles against foreign ships of war." We presume, on the part of our readers, a knowledge of the right possessed ab antiquo by Turkey of closing the Dardanelles to ships of war-a right admitted by all maritime nations. this treaty that right was transferred from Turkey to Russia, and thus was terminated another act in the diplomatic drama, at the end of which Turkey was banded with Russia against England and France.

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