struggling through the river toward him; anxiety to see it reach the shore in safety kept him, in spite of the violence of the rain, rooted to the spot. The billows now rolled like those of the ocean, but still the sturdy strokes of the rower impelled the boat nearer and nearer, until, in a few minutes, it reached the shore where he stood, and he observed that it contained, besides the boatman, two women, who, from their gowns of Dundee grey serge, and their party-coloured worsted plaids, drawn over their heads, appeared to be peasants. They sat in the stern, each with a small light basket on her arm, covered with green leaves, and secured with twigs, in the way that gardeners pack fruit.

The tide, as we have said before, was up, and the depth of the water at the edge of the bank considerable. The boatman stood up, and flinging a rope on shore, called loudly to the Earl to catch and hold it; Gowrie immediately seized the rope, and exerting his powerful strength, kept the boat

near enough to the edge for the man to leap ashore. But at this moment, a thunder cloud burst just above them, and they were enveloped in a sheet of fire, which completely stunned them for a second. But during that second, the women had started both to the same side of the little bark, and overset it; and when Gowrie recovered his sight, which the glare of the lightning had dazzled, he saw that one of them was clinging to its side, and that the other, kept up by her clothes, was still floating at a few yards distance. They were his fellow creatures, and helpless women, thus exposed to instant death, and with the rapidity of the lightning which had caused the accident, the Earl leaped into the river, and notwithstanding the encumbrance of his dress, swam toward her who was farthest off, and draging her by the garments to the side, delivered her to the boatman, who was calling loudly to the other woman to hold on a little longer, while he seated the one he had received upon the grass, where the exertions

to pour

of the Earl speedily placed the other by her side; not, however, in a sitting posture like her companion, for animation was entirely suspended. The Earl knew not what to do. They were at a considerable distance from any house, and the rain still continued down in torrents. He bethought himself of the shieling, in which it had been his intention to shelter himself; and taking the lifeless girl (for such she appeared,) in his arms, he desired the boatman to follow with the other, and carried her to the hut. Placing her on the ground, he sat down himself, and raising her head, laid it on his knee, while he disencumbered it of the plaid, that being fastened under the chin had slipped forward and covered her face, and which having thrown back, he shed the long dark tresses of hair from her pale countenance. But who shall describe the tumult of mingled sensations which overwhelmed him, when he beheld in the peasant girl his beloved Agnes, -her whom he had believed separated from him by the wide ocean, and mourned as lost

to him forever! He could scarcely believe himself awake; and in the bewilderment of the moment, bent his eyes upon her face again and again, fearing it was not in very deed herself, but some one nearly resembling her, for whom his disordered brain was mistaking her. But when Alice presently crawled to the hut, and began to bewail her mistress, he seemed to awake as from a trance, to view the sad reality before him; for he began to dread that she would never more recover from the long and deep swoon into which weakness and terror had thrown her. Alice opened the gown of Lady Agnes at the collar, and rubbed her hands and arms, which lay extended by her sides in utter lifelessness, while the Earl wrung the water from her hair. At length they perceived her bosom begin to heave with returning breath, and though slowly recovering, her fair and perfect features were slightly tinged with the hues of life. Alice no sooner saw that her lady was recovering, than she cried out," Do not leave her, my lord,

and I will quickly return with assistance;" and darting from the hut without waiting for an answer, seemingly no way impeded by her heavy and dripping garments, she flew toward the town. Agnes was not yet sensible, and her respiration was for some time a continuation of long-drawn sighs. The Earl raised her head from his knee, and placed it on his bosom, with all the tenderness of a parent who watches over a sick child; and impelled by an irresistible impulse, he imprinted a long and fervent kiss upon her forehead. In defiance of all the perplexing circumstances that surrounded him, his heart had never experienced such joy; nay, he seemed almost to regret the return of that strength that removed her from his arms, and at length restored her to a full consciousness of her situation. But during the struggle of uncertain existence, words too unequivocal, and an unrepressed transport that diffused itself over her languid features, had answered to his passionate avowal, that he lived alone for her, and