residence as being more suitable to the feelings of her father and herself. She slightly touched upon Mr. Short, as a gentleman who was by no means agreeable to her-but she shrank from telling Archer of the scene that had occurred, and did not make the slightest allusion to the "proposals" which had caused it. She just mentioned that Harding had returned, and was not looking so well as usual: attributable, no doubt, to the very great exertions he had been making in Waterford. Their return to Portsmouth she thought might be delayed a week or two longer. She trusted, meantime, that the Miss Lloyds made themselves comfortable, and acted in all respects in the cottage as they would at home. Mary begged that Archer would give them as much of his society as he could, so that they might not feel dull in a strange place.

Before dinner time there came a very long and handsome apology from poor Mr. Short, full of excuses, declarations, explanations-regrets, defeated hopes, and a sick headache-hatred of himself, and highly-coloured pictures of the happiness he had fondly dared to dream of, followed by the downfall of castles, and prospects of a desolate life-at which Mr. Walton could not help shedding several tears.

In the apologies of the ingenious gentleman there was one thing he laid great stress upon. He did not mention it as an excuse, but only in extenuation. It was, that he had merely pursued Miss Walton into the back parlour to explain to her-on his honour, with no other motive to explain, and to do away with the impression conveyed by the word "propose ;" that he wanted to assure her, it was her health he was about to propose, and not himself-his unfortunate self-at that moment. But finding himself suddenly confronted and impeded by a man—a rude bruteforce working man—and in his own house, he was very naturally. enraged and indignant; and in the excitement of the moment, increased perhaps by the recent pleasures of the table, he had persevered in the terrific manner which had caused all the ladies so much alarm. Had no one opposed him, all would have been well. Miss Walton would never have had the very slightest cause to complain of his pursuit. As for the ruffian, who had so unnecessarily and insolently dared to interfere, Mr. Short trusted he should never again be made aware of his existence.

There was some truth in what Mr. Short said. The intervention at such a moment, no doubt, produced a state of exaspera

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tion in him, and a scene which would not otherwise have occurred. But Harding was not to blame. He had come up from Waterford, by the directions of Mr. Bainton, to confer with Mr. Short and Mr. Walton on the subject of his mission to the coast of Scotland to purchase two or three fishing-smacks. He had just arrived, and walked straight to Mr. Short's house. He was desired to wait, and Mr. Walton would come to him presently. He was shown into a small dusky back parlour; and there he sat looking at the melancholy candle nearly an hour, while the sounds of merriment and feasting came in gusts, as the doors were opened and closed in the passages. Suddenly, he hears a general movement -then a scramble-voices speaking together-hurried feet, and a rustle of ladies' garments-the door of his little dusky room is flung open, and in rushes Mary, with her hair and dress in disorder, and closely followed by somebody whom she evidently wishes to escape, and to whose rude grasp he naturally attributed her uncovered arms and shoulders. To start up and throw himself between, was the impulse of a moment.

What else could he do? Few men but would have done the same in the cause of any woman: how much more so, if that woman had been the object of many thoughts and devout emotions. Such had been Harding's state of mind with regard to Mary, for some time he did not know how long. He was not conscious of the time when he first began to feel a beating heart and a tremor at his knees in her presence. When he did become aware of it, he set it all down to his sense of her noble qualities and handsome person, and the respect and admiration induced by these; but not that this was anything more to him, or that what he felt was anything dangerous to his peace-that it was anything, moreover, which ought not to be, and, for a thousand reasons, never could be.

He at length, however, became aware of his temerity and great misfortune the delicious ruin of his peace, and sweet martyrdom of all his hopes in this world. He was glad they had sent him to Waterford. He had never ventured to think what was in his heart-that is, not voluntarily. Such thoughts had never been daring enough to come to him in the daylight. But no man can command his dreams. There he had seen how it was with him.

If to the "visions of the night" Harding owed it, that his first perceptions of love had stolen from beneath the shades-in the same way did the hopes and fantasies come upon him after the

turbulent and dazzling scene in which he found himself on the evening of his return to Dublin. Since this evening, his dreaming pillow betrayed all the secrets of his heart to his confused mind. In his dreams, he had been supremely blessed, and, careless of the precipice before his path-infinitely wise and irremediably foolish -bold beyond the consciousness of danger-timid and fearful of offending by a breath-standing upon the dark deck in a stormcarrying Mary in his arms down to the raft-walking near her in a green field, with the sun shining all round them-working at a boat, in a boat-house, with Mary looking on, and smiling-out at sea in a boat with her, and their eyes meeting-Oh! how blue the heavens looked, and how they swam round and round!—a little dark room, and a bright angelic form comes flying in to him—a working man turned into a prince and a philosopher, with a noble and intellectual woman at his side, with whom he was unspeakably in love; while a majestic ship, laden with books of poetry, and science, and practical philosophy, came sailing towards them; till a small boy at the bows, like a Cupid, only that he had a frowning forehead, screamed out "Archer!" and then the working man awoke ! He found it had been all a dream! The same kind of thoughts haunted him by day. The Worker had become a Dreamer.

BABY MAY.

CHEEKS as soft as July peaches,
Lips whose velvet scarlet teaches,
Poppies paleness, round large eyes,
Ever great with new surprise-
Minutes filled with shadeless gladness,
Minutes just as brimmed with sadness,
Happy smiles and wailing cries,
Crows and laughs and tearful eyes,
Lights and shadows, swifter born
Then on windswept Autumn corn,
Ever some new tiny notion,
Making every limb all motion,
Catchings up of legs and arms,
Throwings back and small alarms,
Catching fingers, straightening jerks,
Twining feet whose each toe works,

Kickings up and straining risings,
Mother's ever new surprisings,
Hands all wants and looks all wonder
At all things the heavens under,
Tiny scorns of smiled reprovings
That have more of love than lovings,
Mischiefs done with such a winning
Archness that we prize such sinning,
Breakings dire of plates and glasses,
Graspings small at all that passes,
Pullings off of all that's able
To be caught from tray or table,
Silences-small meditations

Deep as thoughts of cares for nations,
Breaking into wisest speeches
In a tongue that nothing teaches,
All the thoughts of whose possessing
Must be wooed to light by guessing,
Slumbers—such sweet angel-seemings
That we'd ever have such dreamings,
Till from sleep we see thee breaking,
And we'd always have thee waking,
Wealth for which we know no measure,
Pleasure high above all pleasure,
Gladness brimming over gladness,
Joy in care-delight in sadness,
Loveliness beyond completeness,
Sweetness distancing all sweetness,

Beauty all that beauty may be,
That's May Bennett-that's my baby.

Osborne House, Blackheath.

W. C. BENNETT,

A PEEP INTO A WELSH IRON VALLEY.

SUCH a peep must be a novelty to many of our readers; and as Wales from the exertions of a Welch Educational League, from certain motions in Parliament, and from the appointment of a Special Commission of Inquiry-has become a subject of some considerable agitation, of late, we trust that our present attempt will prove neither unseasonable nor unwelcome. To him, indeed, whose eyes and ears are constantly dazzled and dinned by the

ceaseless sights and sounds of city-thoroughfares, a glance, as from the top of St. Paul's, into the little busy nest of one of these remote Welsh Iron Valleys, may come not unpleasantly. Merthyr is by far the most important of them all; but, for the present, we shall direct our eyes to a smaller and a prettier.

There, then, it lies beneath our feet! We can see into the very streets and house-row spaces that straggle through the bottom of it: some portion of a true picture of Wales, and life in Wales, surely we shall attain to. There it lies, in the splendour of an autumnal sun. How beautifully small it is! How miniature-like, somehow! A gently-curving sweep it is between these two low mountain ridges, which, leaving the skirts of the high, bleak common on the verge of which we stand, approach to form it. The roots of the two ridges seem to digitate into each other, down there, at the far end; but their tops remain apart, giving sight to a remote mountain with the white dot of a cottage far away, and no other object visible. For there is a crystal clearness in the air, to-day, that makes the distant present; bringing localities, usually considered out and beyond our own, somehow, for the nonce, unto the very midst of us,-associating the whole family of hills around into one peaceful brotherhood of neighbours.

Beautiful, beneath our feet, lies now our miniature valley, all golden in the sun of autumn. Patches of dark, foliaged trees, irregularly embossing the mountain-sides, contrast delightfully with the lighter, fresher green that flows between and around them. From the straggling street, that zig-zags, interruptedly, through the bottom of the valley, there are cottages in clusters, raying out on all sides: white cottages in clusters, up and up the slopes on either side, dwindling in number, till, here and there beneath the summit, they are seen solitary. How delightfully they seem to doze, these high, solitary ones, on the flanks of the mountain, gleaming over trees, or shining above the fencedivided fields, which now are so peculiar-some freshly-green, from which the later hay has just been swept-some waving with yellow corn-some cut up into, and picturesquely dotted with, bundled sheaves !

the

See there, far down, backed by the digitated roots of the treeembossed mountain, far over these fresh fields, a stack shoots up! There is white steam at the base of it, curling up the tall, clean column. Beautiful! Beautiful are the trees, and the fields, and the mountain flanks; but in that whole lovely landscape is there