foam through the dusky air, and flinging it high amid the storm. Stanley continued to keep his foot firmly fixed in the ring of the anchor, lest the billows should sweep him from his position, for he maintained his resolution in spite of the feebleness of exhaustion, to struggle for life as long as any chance of escape remained. He clung with almost convulsive pertinacity to the cord which still enabled him to keep his footing. The surf was now nearly at his breast at every retreat of the wave, which at its return rolled completely over him. He stood against it, however with the most persevering determination, although he was fully sensible that resistance would shortly be vain. He grew gradually weaker: his eyes became dim. He felt that a few brief moments must decide his doom. What a dreadful interval betwixt time and eternity! To hang, as it were between two worlds, about to drop from the present into the future! to plunge from all that is known and tangible into all that is intangible and unknown! to quit certainty for doubt, light for darkness, hope for despair, heaven for hell! It was indeed a fearful moment, and Stanley felt it. He sighed in agony; but this deep-drawn echo of the heart's emotions was stifled by the remorseless waters. They lifted up their angry voices, and flung in his ear the hoarse menace of death. The imagined gibbering of fiends rose upon his startled fancy, and seemed to mock him in his misery. The waves continued their assault, and he could now scarcely breathe between their rapid advance and retreat. 'Mercy, mercy! he cried; O God! pity me! save me! I am lost-what will become of my soul? 'Tis too vile for heaven-horrible, horrible.' His articulation was impeded by the surge. It retreated a moment from his lips- to die thus-to stand upon the confines of perdition-Saviour!—'

He gasped convulsively. The rolling flood again impeded his utterance. He was all but exhausted when his ear caught the dash of oars. His heart leaped-an instant more and it would be too late. His chest was already distended with the bitter draughts which he had for some minutes successively swallowed. He now withdrew his foot from the ring of the anchor, and sustaining himself by the cord, placed his toe upon the shank, which thus increased his elevation a few inches; but by this time the billows had become so large and impetuous, that when the first dashed over him, after he had changed his position, he lost his footing and floated on the agitated surface, at the mercy of the waves. He still, however, retained his hold of the cord. The surf was already in his ears and in his mouth. He struggled in the agonies of suffocation. He began to sink-the flood gurgled in his throat-a confused sound was all he heard-he saw nothing-the frightful obscurity of death was fast closing in around him, when he felt a hand upon his head. It seized his hair, and raised him above the boiling surge. Consciousness returned as he felt himself hauled to the edge of a boat. He grasped the gunnel with frantic energy. At this moment a vivid flash of lightning broke over the convulsed ocean, and fell upon the countenance of his preserver. It was Agnes! What cannot woman do when excited to the fearless exercise of her energies? More than man in the very mightiness of his.-Agnes was one who could dare to do all that woman dared, and more. Nothing was above her resolution.

Stanley could not suppress a hoarse scream of emotion as he beheld the animated but stern countenance of his preserver reflecting with greater intensity the fierce flash of the lightning. Her hair had escaped the fillet which confined it, and hung dripping upon her naked shoul

ders, from which the extreme violence of the gale had stript their flimsy covering. The expression of her eyes was almost wild, yet a glance of such determined meaning broke from them when the pitchy clouds poured forth their vivid fires upon the terrible scene; at the same time, her whole demeanor was so undaunted and self-possessed, that the drowning man began to hesitate whether he was in the hands of a preserving or destroying angel. He clung to the boat with renewed vigor, weighing it down into the angry flood which rolled into it, foaming and spitting like the agitated surface of a boiling cauldron. Agnes was unmoved. The flashes of the lightning exhibited her at intervals standing erect in the rocking boat, and looking with an air of sublime indifference at the deadly strife of the elements, as they hurtled above her head with perilous impetuosity. Stanley entreated her to drag him from his jeopardy. She looked upon him with an expression of calm determination.

'Swear, then, to repair the wrong you have done me, or I leave you to your merited doom.'

I swear.' She fixed her eye keenly upon him. He turned his head from the scrutinising glance.

'What dost thou swear?'

To repair the wrong I have done thee.'

Agnes looked doubtingly, while he still clung convulsively to the gun

nel of the boat.

'Ilow wilt thou repair that wrong? Remember, I am now the preserver of thy life.'

"By marriage!'

A momentary flush past over her colorless cheek.

'Swear, then, by heaven.'

The word was scarce

By heaven!' gasped forth the drowning man. ly articulate as the extorted abjuration was choked by the gushing billows. Agnes drew the now almost exhausted Stanley into the boat, and rowed him in silence to the beach. She had put off in a small skiff when she heard of his danger, in spite of the menacing storm. He spoke not a word during their painful progress, neither did he attempt to assist her, as he was in such a state of exhaustion that he could scarcely stir. He lay almost motionless at the bottom of the boat. The danger, however, was now past, and he soon recovered his self-possession. He was as reckless in security as fearful in peril, and a few minutes, therefore, restored him to his usual callousness of purpose. He soon began to meditate upon what he had pledged himself to perform, with bitter remorse of spirit. He shivered as well from the drenching rain, which still fell in torrents, as from the distracting reflections which crowded upon his excited mind. Could he fulfil his oath? Impossible! Could he evade it? He must-he had no alternative. Better, he thought, that Agnes should continue dishonored than that he should be undone. If a balance of disadvantages were made, his would be the largest, were he madly to redeem his pledge. Besides, he could not do impossibilities. He could not convert wrong into right; and extorted oaths, as the nicest casuists agreed, possessed no moral obligation. The sanctions of moral equity, were at least in his favor, although the literal requisitions of civil justice might be against him. Better, he thought, break an improper oath than add a culpable performance of it to the sin of having made it. The means, where they are sinful, can never sanctify the end. 'I was wrong to swear,' said he mentally, but I repent, and will stop in time, before I add to the wrong an additional sin.' This selfish sophistry, which, though unuttered, passed rapidly through Stanley's thoughts, at

once determined him ; and before he reached the landing, his mind was perfectly made up to consider an extorted oath as not binding, and consequently to leave the injured Agnes to her degradation and her misery.

How soon are the greatest benefits forgotten-the greatest, perhaps, the soonest!

MISCELLANEA.

Joining a Settler.-Extract of a letter from New South Wales.—'We duly reached Newcastle by the packet; and then hired a boat to take us and our baggage up the river, and we arrived at G's settlement a little before 12, A. M. He was out, as one of his men informed us, chipping in murphies;'-and, my sister being not a little wearied, I desired the man to inform him of our arrival, while we rested on two blocks of wood which served for chairs. In a few minutes G―― came hurrying in, with nothing on [saving your presence] but his shirt and a large kangaroo skin cap, forgetting how he was attired in his anxiety to welcome us. The first salutations over, G-seated himself on another log, still entirely forgetting his trowsers, until I contrived by a look, to remind him of them, when he politely slipped on a pair in our presence, and composedly resumed his seat. After some mutual inquiries, he apologised for having everything in such a rough way, and desired his man to let us have dinner. I looked round, but could not espy a table, but in a moment the only door of the dwelling was unshipped from its hinges, and laid on two blocks of wood, Dennis, the cook, now put three clasp knives on the door, and exclaimed, in a tone of some bitterness, 'Sorrow take the black fellers, they've brought us neither fish nor wild ducks to day, and we've nothing at all but a butlock's head and some damper.' 'Can't help it, Dennis, fetch it in,' said G. In a few minutes Dennis returned, and to our inexpressible astonishment placed on the table, all recking from the cauldron, an immense bullock's head with the horns, hair, and ears on.'

March of Pen'worths.-A penny paper, le Bon Sens, has been started at Paris by the leaders of the liberal party, and is published every Sunday.

March of Lithography.-A lithographic press has been established at Shiraz in Persia, under the direction of one Mirza Ahmet, who has thus began to print small elementary school-books.

French Royal Medals.-We fear that many of the most rare of these remains of antiquity have perished in the crucibles, wedges of gold having been found in several places, supposed to be the product of these precious memorials.

Coquetry.-Coquetry is the daughter of Gaiety, and the mother of Mortification.-Le Cercle.

M. Elie de Beaumont, celebrated for his investigation of mountain formation, has been appointed to the chair of geology in the College of France, vacant by the death of Cuvier.