easy under the strange dazzle of Captain Fanny's black eyes. I have said that they were not ordinary eyes; indeed, there was something in them that the physiognomists of to-day would have set themselves industriously to work to define and explain. They were not only restless, but there was a look in them almost of terror-not of a terror of to-day or yesterday, but of some dim far-away time too remote for memory-some nervous shock received long before the mind had power to note its force, but which had left its lasting scal upon one feature of

the face.

Sarah Pecker dropped and broke one of her best wine-glasses under the strange influence of these restless eyes. They fixed her gaze as if they had had some netic power. She followed every motion of them earnestly, almost inquiringly, till the highwayman addressed her.

mag

"We have the extreme honour of being waited upon by the landlady of the Bear in her own gracious person, have we not?" he said gallantly, admiring his small jewelled hand as he spoke. He was but a puny, almost wasted stripling, this dashing captain, and it was only the extreme vitality in himself that preserved him from insignificance.

Now at any other time Sarah Pecker would have dropped a curtsey, smoothed her muslin apron, and asked her guests whether their dinner had been to their liking; if their rooms were comfortable; the wine agreeable to their taste; and some other such hospitable questions; but to-night she seemed tongue-tied, as if the restless light in the Captain's eyes had almost magnetized her

into silence.

"Yes," she murmured; "I am Sarah Pecker."

And a very comfortable and friendly creature you look, Mrs. Pecker," answered Captain Fanny, with a sublime air of patronage. "A recommendation in your own person to the hospitable shelter of the Bear; and, egad! Compton-on-theMoor has need of some pleasant place of entertainment for the unlucky traveller who finds himself by mischance in its dreary neighbourhood. Was there ever such a place, lads ?" he added, turning to his two companions.

But Mrs. Sarah Pecker had been born in the village of Compton, and was by no means disposed to stand by and hear her native place so contemptuously spoken of. Turning her face a little away from the

dashing knight of the road, as if it were easier to her to speak when out of the radius of those unquiet eyes, she said, with some dignity,

Compton-on-the-Moor may be a retired place, gentlemen, being nigh upon a week's journey from London, but it is a pleasant village in summer time, and there are a great many noble families about."

"Ah! by the bye!" replied Captain Fanny, "we took notice of a big, redbrick, square-built house, standing amongst some fine timber, upon a bit of rising ground, half a mile on the other side of the village. A dull old dungeon enough it looked, with half the windows shut up. Who does that belong to ?".

"It's called Compton Hall, sir," answered Sarah, "and it did belong to young Squire Ringwood Markham." A fair-faced lad, with blue eyes and a small waist!" "The same, sir."

"Ringwood Markhamn!

"I knew him six years ago in London."

"Very likely, sir. Poor Master Ringwood had his fling of London life, and very little he got by it, poor boy. He's gone now, sir. He was only buried three weeks ago."

"And Compton Hall belonged to him?"

"Yes, sir; and Compton Hall farm, which brings in an income of four or five hundred a year."

"And who does the Hall belong to now, then ?" asked Captain Fanny.

To his sister, sir, Miss Millicent that was. Mrs. Duke."

'Yes, sir; worth that if it's worth a farthing."

And the only proof she has ever had of George Duke's death is his seven years' absence from Compton-on-the-Moor?"

"She could scarcely need a stronger proof, I should think, sir."

"Couldn't she?" exclaimed the young man, with a laugh. "Why, Mrs. Sarah Pecker, I have seen so much of the strange chances and changes of this world, that I seldom believe a man is dead unless I see him put into his coffin, the lid screwed down upon him, and the earth shovelled into his grave; and even then there are some people such slippery customers that I should scarcely be surprised to meet them at the gate of the churchyard. The world is wide enough outside Comptonon-the-Moor: who knows that Captain Duke may not come back to-morrow to claim his wife and her fortune ?"

"The Lord forbid!" said Mrs. Pecker, earnestly; "I would rather not be wishing ill to any one; but sooner than poor Miss Millicent should see him come back to break her heart and waste her money, I would pray that the captain of the Vulture may lie drowned and dead under the foreign seas."

saying, Amen. But as to seven years' absence being proof enough to make a woman a widow, that's a common mistake, and a vulgar one, Mrs. Sarah, that I scarcely expected from a woman of your sense. Seven years—why, husbands have come back after seventeen!"

Mrs. Pecker made no answer to this. If her face was paler even than it had been before, it was concealed from observation as she bent over the dessert-table collecting the dirty glasses upon her tray.

When she had left the room, and the three young men were once more alone, Captain Fanny burst into a peal of ringing laughter.

"A pious wish!” cried Captain Fanny, laughing. "However, as I don't know the gentleman, Mrs. Pecker, I don't mind

EVERY Swiss tourist knows the Reuss, that most turbulent of little streams, which comes thundering down through its narrow and stony bed, at a depth of fifty feet from the carriage-road, between two walls formed of almost perpendicular rocks; well, this same Reuss formerly intercepted all communication between the inhabitants of the Val de Cornara and those of the valley of Goschenen; that is to say, between the Grisons and the people of Uri. This impassable barrier caused so much loss to the two cantons bordering on the stream that they assembled their most skilful architects, and accordingly, at the common expense, several bridges were built at various periods, from bank to bank, not one of which had ever proved sufficiently solid to withstand for more than one year the violence of the tempests, the mountain torrents, or the falls of avalanches. One last attempt of this kind had been made towards the close of the fifteenth century, and the winter being now almost past, hopes were

raised that this time the bridge would resist all attacks, when one morning a villager came to inform the Bailli of Goschenen that the passage was again intercepted.

"Well, then," cried the worthy Bailli, in a pet, "it is only the devil that can build us one."

He had scarcely uttered the words when his servant announced that a stranger desired to speak to his worship on pressing business.

"Show him in," said the Bailli. The domestic retired and presently ushered in a man of about thirty or five-and-thirty years of age, clad in the German fashion; that is to say, wearing a pair of red tight pantaloons, and a closely-fitting jacket of black cloth, slashed at the sleeves, and dis closing to view a lining of flame-coloured satin. His head was covered with a black cap of peculiar form, a style of headdress to which a long crimson plume lent by its undulations à peculiar grace.

"To whom," said the Bailli, motion

peared on the road from Goschenen; he came to assure himself that his strange visitor had kept his promise.

Good morning," said the stranger. "You see I am a man of my word." "And I also," returned the Bailli. "How! my dear Curtius," exclaimed the stranger in a tone of astonishment; "is it possible that you are going to devote yourself for the safety of your people?” "Not exactly," said the Bailli, drily, depositing at his feet a sack which he had hitherto borne over his shoulders, the cords of which he began leisurely to untie. "Not exactly, my friend-not exactly."

"Why, what's all this?" said the stranger, endeavouring from the other side of the river to discern the Bailli's strange movements.

"Hurroosh!" shouted the Bailli all at

once.

And a dog, dragging a kettle at his tail, dashed, terror-stricken, from the sack, and crossing the bridge, rushed howling past the stranger's feet.

"Holloa, there!" cried the Bailli, laughing. "Don't you see your payment for the bridge running away from you; why don't you pursue it, monseigneur ?"

The devil-for it is no use any longer hiding the fact from our readers, it was the devil-the devil, then, we say, was furious; he had reckoned on a human being, and was obliged to content himself with a dog. Meanwhile, as he was in good company, he put the best face he

could upon the matter, pretended to think the whole affair an excellent joke, "a right merrie conceit," and laughed heartily long as the Bailli was present. Bat sooner had the magistrate turned back when he set to work, tooth and na in order to demolish this specimen of handicraft; but, alas! he had constructe the bridge so conscientiously that he turned his nails and broke his teeth wi out being able to displace a fragment.

All at once, he perceived what he t to be the advance of a large concourse people. He climbed upon a rock distinctly perceived the clergy of G chenen, cross at head, and banners wav in the breeze, coming in a body to the devil's bridge. Our friend was convinced that he had no longer any ness there. He descended sorrowf from his perch, and meeting a poor on his way, as the only object he c vent his spleen on, he seized it by tail, and giving it a turn or two nam his head, pitched it into the river.

As to the Bailli of Goschenen, he ne heard any more of his infernal archite Only the first time that he had occasi to open his purse he burnt his finge severely, the golden ingot having retur to the original state it had been in the drawn from the fire.

The bridge, as the stranger p mised, lasted five hundred years. Av bridge has now stolen its name, remains of the old one still exist it.

R readers must pardon us for commeucing with a Latin quotation; but it d be a difficult matter to find a better dation for the useless man; after this, there is not much left to be said on the eet; but as we love a gossip, we will, the reader's permission, have a few ents' conversation with him about Peless People."

The useless man, even should he be the stinoffensive being in the world, is as a dangerous friend and a bad intance.

For a man is hurtful not only by the al evil that he commits, but also by good that he might do, and yet has done: add to this the contagion of le, and you will comprehend why We said just now that it is better to see the useless man at a distance than close aband. Our malediction, say we, on these sterile friends! the least of the evils at they commit is that of robbing you your time-and what is that? why, it your very life-that is to say, a species property of a value so enormous, that fcne could only sell a dozen years to a ying man, the greatest Croesus on the arth would willingly give his last farthing exchange for but a portion of the precommodity.

And which of us is there that does not in at least two or three useless pe in the circle of his acquaintance? Pur own part we are bound to confess we are not exempt from this weakwe were going to say, cowardice; feeling an earnest desire, however, to off at length a yoke, the burden of ich is become insupportable, and as one not very well say to a man's face, no er how tiresome he may be, "Go to Le Devil!" we have thought it better to pt, through the channel of the press, fashion of congé more polite, which Wound no one, but which may, on contrary, suggest salutary reflections

many.

Let this, then, be considered as a rmal invitation to all those who honour with their consideration and friendship, make a strict examination of their conence, self-love being for the time most gly excluded. If, after serious reection, some one feels himself culpable

con

of uselessness or habitual idleness, defects, in our estimation, perfectly synonymous, he will permit us to give him two pieces of advice, one in his own interest, the other in ours: Firstly, to use all possible efforts to become a useful man; secondly, failing in this, or until a summation so devoutly to be wished" be obtained, to be so good as to discover some object of interest on the opposite side of the way, whenever he meets us either in the street or elsewhere,-and we shall feel particularly obliged to him.

Now that we have made a clean breast of it on this point, we will say, to the praise of useless people-for we must be just to all-that they are generally more empty-headed than actually bad intentioned, and the proof that they are not actuated in their proceedings by malice prepense is, that, with an obstinacy worthy of a better cause, they persist in seeking the acquaintance of a crowd of people, even those of the humblest stations in life, and that they have at heart no other idea than that of wandering hopelessly from one friend's house to another, a burden to themselves, and to every one so unfortunate as to cross their path. If, bored to death by their platitudes, you forget yourself so far as to say, "You are very tiresome," or "You are really a great bore," they will only laugh and say, Thank you," and will make their appearance again next day, as if nothing was meant. If, having recourse to strong measures, you actually kick them out of the door, they are capable of returning by the window; for time is their mortal enemy, and to kill this enemy there are no meannesses they will not stoop to, no insults they will not endure.

The proof now that useless people belong to the order of the "empty-headed" may be discovered in the following facts, viz., that they willingly resign themselves to this most discreditable career, while there are open to them so many other pursuits not only of a much more honourable nature, but actually easier in prac tice; that they are clever only in frittering away their life; that they dispense in idleness or in busying themselves in the performance of a multitude of nothings