"What? Nay, do not pause, but tell your wish, and boldly. What, blushing again! We shall have the roses stealing all your bloom away, from sheer envy. Come, Sister Rosalind, your wish-your wish."

“Well, then, I should like to be placed in a situation where great firmness and great forbearance were necessary to extricate some one I dearly loved out of trouble, and then I should like to try to act-like Lady Rachel Russell. You see I am very ambitious. She makes one so proud of being born an Englishwoman, that I could almost exchange countries to enjoy the privilege.

"Well, our ambitions differ," said Margaret, drawing up her figure to its full height. "I should like to have been born a queen; to have thousands to yield me homage; to dwell in a palace; to be the dispenser of life and death. Oh, how many would I punish! how many compel to bite the earth they now so proudly tread upon !"

"No doubt, no doubt! I do not doubt ye," chimed in the full deep voice of Alice Murrough, who still remained, halfkneeling, half-sitting, behind the tree, telling over her beads, but keeping no less anxious count of every thing that passed. "No doubt, no doubt!-I do not doubt ye," she repeated; and then murmured in a lower tone, "the bad blood begets the cankered sore—no doubt, no doubt!”

Margaret turned the flashing light of her proud eye upon Alice, who heeded it no more than if the young lady had not been by, but worked on at an ave, which had been interrupted by her soliloquy.

"Woman! what say ye?" inquired Margaret, Rosalind thought almost fiercely.

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My prayers, miss-do you ever say yours?"

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"You are all sweetness, Rosalind," said Margaret, after a pause, during which she bent her brow as she gazed on the apparently unconscious nurse; but, verily, your attendants are in no degree gentle; that woman seems as though she could devour me, and as for the hound, he gathered his lips off his teeth when I approached, and has not replaced them since."

"Indeed! Alice does ever as she likes, but Brano must be taught better manners." She took Margaret's hand within her own, and put it towards the dog; the sagacious creature looked wistfully into his lady's face, and crouched at

her feet; yet, firm in his antipathy, he refused to recognise Miss Raymond as a friend.

"Let us walk," exclaimed Margaret, with her accustomed impatience of manner; "I hate sitting still; there is nothing like exertion for mind and body."

"I love walking too," replied her gentle companion; "but I love it best in the free fields; many are the happy hours I have spent with my dear uncle, early and late, wandering over hill and mossy dell."

“You are quite a young lady of romance," replied Margaret, somewhat sneeringly. "I suppose you are too wise to think of dress or ornaments of any kind.'

"That I am not," said the sweet-tempered girl, laughing; "I assure you it is no small mortification to me to be obliged to don this dress, and braid back my hair; but I have a great impatience to learn that beautiful art of embroidery, which Sister Agnes teaches with so much skill. should like to embroider Lady Sydney a hassock."

I

"Do you then love her so well as to devote to her so much time?"

"I love my uncle dearly, and she is his wife," said the frank Rosalind.

"I wish I could find an Orlando for you, fair maid, to take the place of this said uncle; but I suppose you never read plays, so do not ken my meaning."

"Indeed my uncle's dearest delight, when he was angling (which is one of his favourite sports-and it is so pretty to see the tenderness with which he unhooks the small fish, and sends them floating away in freedom), was to have me sit by him and read his favourite passages from the very play you speak of. The Forest of Ardennes is almost as familiar to me as the New Forest; and when uncle moralizes too long, I call him melancholy Jaques."

"How my heart pants to leave this forest! yet I would be content to remain here for a long, long time, if I should be great hereafter."

"Do you mean great in another world?" inquired Rosalind.

Margaret's laugh rang among the echoes of the trees. "No! what is that to me? I wish for greatness here-I will be great."

"I hope to be good," responded Rosalind gently, as she

gathered a carnation. "I should like to be as good as Lady

Rachel Russell."

Poor Rosalind, luckily for her self-esteem, did not see the look of contempt which Margaret bestowed upon her. Had volumes been written to illustrate the character of each, it could not have been more truly developed than by the simple and single statement which they themselves had made: one desired to be great, and cared little how she achieved that greatness; the other to be good, and to immolate any feeling that would militate against it. The two girls had frequently passed, as they walked up and down the sheltered river-path, a mouldering turret, which from its peculiar and elevated situation must once have commanded a very extensive view over the adjacent country. The steps which led to it had crumbled away; and whoever wished to climb so high must of necessity creep up the wall, and secure a footing on projecting stones and portions of creeping plants. This might be considered a service of danger, as the wall was close to Beaulieu river, and the turret projected over its

stream.

"It com

"What a picturesque ruin!" said Rosalind. "Shall we go to the top?" inquired Margaret. mands a glorious view; we can see the abbey-gate, which is at the next angle; indeed the gate is not ten yards from the river."

Rosalind had never been censured for gazing on a beautiful prospect, nor was she aware that looking beyond the walls was forbidden by the abbess: had she known so much, she would not have so acted, under any temptation however great; but Margaret, who loathed restraint, had no such notions. Both accordingly commenced the ascent, and after much climbing and much laughing succeeded in their object. Deep was Rosalind's delight at the magnificence outspread before her. Brano followed her to the foot of the steep; but as the poor fellow feared to proceed farther, he laid himself down at the first stone, and turned his head upward, that so he might not lose sight of his mistress.

"Now," said Margaret, "if the times of chivalry were not past, we might fancy ourselves two distressed damsels, and hope that some cavaliers would come to our rescuestorm the castle-and carry us away to their halls and palaces, where we should at once be high ladies, and preside

over tilts and tournaments; and, mayhap, captivate some mighty monarch, and have our praises sung like the princesses of old-would not that be glorious!"

"I would rather," replied the more humble-minded, “be led to the altar by my dear uncle, and there given to some worthy man." Margaret laughed. "Well, by worthy I mean some brave defender of his country, who loved me, and me only, and would take me to some quiet demesne, where I might bestow my care and charity upon his servants and retainers; feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and receive the sweet voluntary tribute of blessings in return."

I

"Utopian!" laughed Margaret. "Well, you are the wisest, for your dream may be realized; mine cannot. hope none of the elder nuns will see us here, for you must know, gentle Rosalind, this is a place proscribed; the dear abbess would be sadly alarmed to see us here, lest we should break our necks."

"Let us go down then," said Rosalind; "why are we here if it be wrong?"

Margaret heeded not her expostulation, for her attention was directed to a troop of horsemen that issued from the wood, and rode along the path leading to the abbey: this group consisted of only four persons, two gentlemen and their attendants; and very gay and gallant they looked, well mounted, well caparisoned, and soldierly.

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"See, Rosalind," exclaimed Margaret, waving her kerchief at the same time in a very un-nunlike fashion to the gentlemen, and with the other hand seizing Rosalind's arm: Look! yonder is my brother! how very strange! There, they raise their caps: what a handsome and a brave youth accompanies him! who is he? Is that Captain Basil Sydney, your cousin? It must be he. Oh, how delighted I shall be to see Cuthbert! How well-how handsome he looks! Does he not, Rosalind?"

But at once poor Rosalind's sense of the impropriety of her situation came fully upon her; she knew why she had been sent to St. Mary's, yet there she stood, exposed to the observation of the very person for whose security she had been exiled. She could not brook the ardent gaze of admiration with which both the young men regarded her as they approached the gate: they bowed, and waved their caps,

and kissed their hands; and Margaret, to Rosalind's increased distress, returned their salutations.

"This is not what we should do; indeed, indeed, I must go down," said Rosalind, at length disengaging her arm from Margaret's grasp. "I would not have come here at all if I thought it had been forbidden-let us go down."

She placed her slender foot on a projecting stone, and then upon another; but was so completely unnerved by what had occurred, that she never once thought of the care that was necessary to secure her descent. Margaret saw her danger, and screamed; the scream only served to increase Rosalind's agitation. Instead of descending as she had ascended, she hung over the river, and in her anxiety to regain the convent garden missed her footing, and would have been instantly precipitated into the stream, which was eddying at the foot of the turret, had she not caught at a gigantic clump of wall-flowers that grew out of a cleft of the building. There she hung, clasping the fragrant flowers with both her hands; and her hair, which had burst from the enclosure of her convent cap, floating like a sunny veil on the breeze. Brano was not inactive, but sprung into the stream, as if he knew that her frail support could not last long; and the cavaliers, attracted by Margaret's continued screams, galloped from the gate, whose ponderous bell was loudly clanking under the practised hand of Jemmings, anxious to make a due impression of his master's consequence. On arriving beneath the turret they saw poor Rosalind's peril, but too late to prevent the catastrophe, for her perfumed hope gave way, and she was precipitated into the bubbling waters. Brand was not idle, nor did his courage forsake him; but his teeth were grown old, and his energies almost exhausted. He seized the drapery, which rose above the stream; but the eddy had caught Rosalind within its whirl, and drew then both within its vortex. Cuthbert Raymond waited not to dismount, but plunged with his horse from off the bank; while Basil, more cool, and consequently more useful, ran along the edge, and watching. the current, sprang in at the very point where he knew Rosalind must come to the surface. The result proved that he was right; for in a few moments he bore the dripping beauty to the green bank of the convent garden, where only