and handsome.

You may easily guess that he was the for

tunate object of her choice.

On the very day of their marriage, Don Pedro, who was quite beside himself with love, pride, and his natural violence of disposition, hurried to wait for his rival at the door of the church; and as soon as he saw him approach with that adored mistress whom he himself was on the point of losing for ever, he rushed like a madman upon Estevan, plunged a dagger into his heart, and escaped amidst the cries and tumult of the crowd. The beautiful Ruperta fainted by the side of the unfortunate Estevan, who lay dead and bathed in his blood. She was carried to her house, and was long before she returned to life; and then only to fall into a terrible delirium, and a burning fever, which brought her to the brink of the grave. She incessantly invoked and called for her dear Estevan, and burst from the arms of her women, to search, she said, the world through, for the monster who had robbed her of her husband, her lover, and to sacrifice him herself to her implacable vengeance. Rage, love and grief, would soon have put an end to her existence, if those who attended her had not had the prudence to comply with all her wishes. She ordered to be brought to her the dagger which the barbarous Don Pedro had left in the bosom of Estevan; and she had the body of her murdered lover disinterred, and the heart taken out, and embalmed in a golden urn. As soon as she was mistress of this melancholy relic, she swore, with the dagger in her hand, and resting upon the urn, never again to see the light of day till she had avenged the death of her husband. Immediately, she directed all the windows of her room to be blocked up; the walls were covered with black velvet; a sepulchral lamp was suspended from the ceiling; the dagger and the golden urn were placed on an altar under the lamp; and the young and beautiful Ruperta, dressed in coarse and dark woollen, and renouncing all the world, to give herself up to her grief, and indulge in her tears, never went out of this solitary and gloomy chamber.

Scipio. I like madam Ruperta very much. Those who love, should love as she did, or not pretend to have any thing to do with it. I dare say that the poor thing soon died!

Bergancio. No; but her health visibly declined every day. I had been in the house a month, and her female servants and

her gentleman usher had incessantly importuned her to call in a physician. At length she reluctantly consented. The physician found that she was exceedingly ill, and he threatened her with a speedy death, unless she submitted to a change of air. She refused for a long while. Overcome, however, at last, by the prayers and tears of all her household, she promised to pass a few weeks on a beautiful estate which she possessed a few days' journey from Madrid; but faithful to her oath, she sent previously to arrange an apartment similar to that which she was quitting, and that she might not see the light of day, she travelled only in the night, stopping at the inns when the dawn appeared, and shutting herself up in a dark chamber with the urn and the dagger, which she never suffered to be from her a moment.

I was taken upon this journey; and as, when I saw the lovely Ruperta weeping, I was moved to the bottom of my heart by so much love and constancy, I could not forbear from expressing my pity by howling, and this howling gained for me the friendship of my mistress. She allowed me to remain in her room, she sometimes caressed me, and she trusted to me the care of the door, during the few moments which she gave to painful and sorrowful slumber.

66

One evening, when we were just setting off from an inn at which we had passed the day, the gentleman usher of the mournful Ruperta entered, in a hurried manner, with a disturbed countenance. 66 Madam," said he, “ do not go down. You will meet with a man, the sight of whom will be too overpowering for you." "What man is it?" replied she. "It is the young Ferdinand de Gamboa, the only son of the traitor Don Pedro. He is returning from Salamanca, and intends to pass the night in this inn. He is now in the inn yard with his servants. Wait till he is shewn to his room, that you may avoid the odious sight of him.”

At these words Ruperta turned pale, and leaned upon one of her women. She remained silent for some time, her head bent down, and her looks fixed upon the ground; then, raising her wildly rolling eyes, she exclaimed," let my horses be taken off, I shall not set out till to-morrow." The gentleman usher endeavoured to persuade her to change her resolution; but she repeated her order, and desiring that she might be left alone, she then shut herself up in her chamber, where there was no one but me.

As soon as she was by herself, she hurried to the golden urn, seized it impetuously, pressed it to her lips and her heart, and with a voice broken by sobs, "O deplorable and only remains of all that I loved, of all that I could love in the world," exclaimed she, "this is the moment of the vengeance which I have promised to thee, which I have sworn to thee. That vengeance shall be terrible. Who better knows than I, supremely wretched as I am, that the worst of all torments is the surviving of an adored object! The only son of this monster must be the dearest thing which he has on earth! I will tear it from him as he has torn mine from me. He shall pay me for thy blood with the blood of his son. That son I know to be innocent; but so wert thou when the barbarian assassinated thee. I must avenge a crime by a crime, and expiate my own by my death! O my husband, that death for which I sigh, that happy death which will reunite me to thee, will be for thy afflicted widow the moment of exquisite felicity; but previously I shall obtain my revenge."

Saying these words, Ruperta seized the dagger, which lay by the urn; she tried the point, and then hid the weapon in her bosom. Having done this, she struggled to put on a tranquil countenance, called privately one of the female servants of the inn, and, presenting to her a purse of gold, only asked her, in return for this liberality, to come at midnight, and introduce her, unseen, into the bed-room of the young man who had just arrived. The servant smiled and promised. Ruperta, little caring what construction might be put upon this, recommended to her to be discreet; sent away her maids and domestics, and impatiently waited for the fatal hour.

(To be Resumed.)

THE WIDOW'D MOTHER.

BESIDE her babe, who sweetly slept,
A widow'd mother sat and wept
O'er years of love gone by;
And as the sobs thick-gathering came,
She murmur'd her dead husband's name
Mid that sad lullaby.

Well might that lullaby be sad,

For not one single friend she had

On this cold-hearted earth;

The sea will not give back its prey-
And they were wrapt in foreign clay
Who gave the orphan birth.
Stedfastly as a star doth look
Upon a little murmuring brook,
She gazed upon the bosom
And fair brow of her sleeping son-
"O merciful Heaven! when I am gone
"Thine is this earthly blossom!"
While thus she sat-a sunbeam broke
Into the room;-the babe awoke,
And from his cradle smiled!

Ah, me! what kindling smiles met there!
I know not whether was more fair,
The mother or her, child!

With joy fresh-sprung from short alarms,
The smiler stretched his rosy arms,
And to her bosom leapt→

All tears at once were swept away,
And said a face as bright as day,-
"Forgive me! that I wept!"

་

Sufferings there are from nature sprung,
Ear hath not heard, nor Poet's tongue
May venture to declare;
But this as Holy-Writ is sure,
"The griefs she bids us here endure
"She can herself repair!"

THE FAIR REVENGE.

Aganippus, king of Argos, dying without heirs male, bequeathed his throne to his only daughter, the beautiful and beloved Daphles. This female succession was displeasing to a nobleman who held large possessions on the frontiers; and he came for the first time towards the court, not to pay his

respects to the new queen, but to give her battle. Doracles (for that was his name) was not much known by the people. He had distinguished himself for as jealous an independence as a subject could well assume; and though he had been of use in repelling invasion during the latter years of the king, had never made his appearance to receive his master's thanks personally. A correspondence, however, was understood to have gone on between him and several noblemen about the court; and there were those, who, in spite of his inattention to popularity, suspected that it would go hard with the young queen, when the two armies came face to face.

But neither these subtle statesmen, nor the ambitious young soldier Doracles, were aware of the effects to be produced by a strong personal attachment. The young queen amiable as she was beautiful, had involuntarily baffled his expectations from her courtiers, by exciting in the minds of some a real disinterested regard, while others nourished a hope of sharing her throne instead. At least, they speculated upon becoming, each the favourite minister; and held it a better thing to reign under that title and a charming mistress, than be the servants of a master, wilful and domineering. By the people she was adored; and when she came riding out of her palace, on the morning of the fight, with an unaccustomed spear standing up in its rest by her side, her diademed hair flowing a little off into the wind, her face paler than usual, but still tinted with its roses, and a look in which confidence in the love of her subjects, and tenderness for the wounds they were going to encounter, seemed to contend for the expression—the shout which they sent up would have told a stouter heart than a traitor's that the royal charmer was secure.

The queen during the conflict, remained in a tent upon an eminence, to which the younger leaders vied who should best spur up their smoking horses, to bring her good news from time to time. The battle was short and bloody. Doracles soon found that he had miscalculated his point; and all his skill and resolution could not set the error to rights. It was allowed, that if either courage or military talent could entitle him to the throne, he would have had a right to it; but the popularity of Daphles supplied her cause with all the ardour, which a lax state of subjection on the part of the