had obtained some business, and now wrote a but measured voice, "I will let the lady have letter to his wife to come to him, inclosing my room, although, in a like case, I would not the necessary funds for her expenses. But take her's;" adding, "If her babe is sick, she the faithless messenger, a heartless villain, is welcome to it; for mine, thank God, are abstracted the money, and destroyed the let-well." The rooms, she knew, were equally ter; and the first news the unfortunate wo- good; yet she felt the indignity of being disman received was, that her husband was dead! placed at the will of another. The poor He had been seized with the fever of the creature was full of grief, and bewildered country, and in his delirium and his anxiety with anxieties; and the unfriendliness of this to see his family, had wandered by night from assault wounded and oppressed her. She his unattended bed to the river, and there was made ready to remove her things. Her drowned, having been discovered too late for scanty packages gave place to the rich and massive travelling apparatus of the lady.— What a contrast the two presented, in all respects, of condition and of character!

assistance.

The widow was now on her way from New Orleans to Bayou Sara, on the melancholy errand of seeing the spot, and learning the particulars of her husband's death-hoping, too, in her destitute condition, to save whatever little effects he might have died possessed of. She had taken her passage in the boat, as I have said, as deck passenger; but the captain, a benevolent man, when he ascertained the particulars of her case, told her she should come free of charge; and also, when a vacancy occurred that day, by the landing of some ladies at a town on the river, he removed her and her children into the vacant state-room. The water was in a very low stage, and it took the unusual time of five days from the city to Bayou Sara.

When the lady saw her busying herself to remove, she insisted that her servant should lift the things for her, "since," said she, in her petulant self-complacency, "you have chosen to be so good as to remove for me, I ought to help you." The widow took a babe on either arm, as if they were her comforters. She looked much disturbed, and very pale; and making no reply to the other, she cast her eyes, which were full of tears, up to heaven, and said in a low, sustained, and humble voice, "Choose all our changes for us, Lord.” She passed into the opposite room and shut the door. And amongst the twenty women that were present, there was silence in that The day after the widow's instalment in the hall for three minutes-attesting to the right ladies' cabin, there arrived a party from a feeling for the oppressed party. And when, plantation on the coast, consisting of a gen- with the next tack of the boat, the sun was tleman and his wife, an infant of two years seen blazing full upon the head of the innoand his nurse, and one or two other attend- cent babe, the unconscious usurper, the ill-reants. Their passage had been bespoken on pressed titter and the half-malicious smile the downward trip of the boat, and a state- which passed from face to face, told the lady room held in reserve for them. It so hap- where to look; and she sprang into the statepened that when the lady of the plantation room, impatiently pulling the door after her, first entered the cabin, seeing the sun full and was heard taxing Nelly for "not keeping upon her apartment, she declared herself dis- the sun out of the room." There she stayed satisfied, saying it was out of the question for a quarter of an hour, and by this time she that her infant should lie in a room exposed" was lonesome;" and when she re-appeared to the sun, or on that side of the boat where the sun came! And she looked about, as we may suppose she had been accustomed to do at home, to espy whom she might dislodge; and seeing the lowly looks and humble arrangements of the widow on the opposite side, she asserted at once that she believed that that was the room which had been selected for her! The widow replied, "Madam, I don't know; the captain put me in this apartment." "O, the captain has made a mistake," insisted the lady, "I spoke first for the room, of course, as I engaged it on the downward trip; besides, my little boy is not well, and can't stand the sun." Some one suggested to the widow that the subject had better be referred to the captain. But she, feeling probably that she would not, however innocently, embarrass him with his passengers, said, with dignity and gentleness, in low

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with her hands full of oranges, which, in their luscious ripeness, she dispersed to the company, they were as well received as if she had not been condemned by every one present, and as if it had not been decided, by unanimous vote, in her absence, to send her to Coventry during the rest of the voyage.

An hour afterward, when the widow came out of her room, the lady of the plantation rose alertly and fetched three fine oranges, saying, "I saved them for you." The little widow said, with humane dignity, putting back her hand, "You must excuse me, but the children may eat their's-I thank you.' The other was neither offended, nor touched, nor surprised-in fact, she had no delicacy. Selfishness and humorsomeness had devoured her sensibilities, and she was a petulant, spoiled, grown baby. And though I have called her, par excellence, the "lady of the

JACK PURCEL AND THE CROWS.

An Irish Sketch.

BY MRS. S. C. HALL, OF LONDON.

knowledgeable man can hardly find them on the earth-the beautiful crows-they know the differ- they know me, and I know them and their language! Ah! ah!-caw they Jack Purcel was a mixture of shrewdness go, and down comes a feather!--That for and absurdity, cunning and simplicity-a com- you, Jack'-down it comes a token of good pound of Nature and Art-and sometimes will-a coal black feather to Jack Purcel from Nature without Art-stringing truisms on so the king of the crows!-Fine birds they are slender a thread, that it broke before his work-wise birds-did you never hear their was finished, and then laughing at his own mistake.

prayers?-I did. Just when the grey light comes stealing out of heaven, the old king crow-he that rests in the tall fir tree-caws to his queen-the old queen-and then to his people, and then they shake the dew off their feathers, and trim their wings, and then they

At times you felt inclined to believe him a rational, a deeply thinking creature-almost a philosopher and you listened to the wisdom that fell from his lips-when lo!-a sudden change would force upon you the convic-rise, as one bird, in the air, and pray." tion that the poor fellow was "only a fool."

It might be that both conclusions were too rapidly drawn. I certainly do not pretend to define what Jack Purcel was, or was not; I only mean to record what he said and did he being what in Ireland is termed "a natural"-one in whom the lamp of reason, if it burn at all, has never been trimmed or garnished.

"What do you mean by a natural?" I once inquired of an old woman. She replied"A natural is it?-Why, thin, as a body may say, it's just one that's half saved."

"And what do you mean by 'half saved?"" "Ah, thin, it's a natural."

"And what do they say, Jack?"

"May be they would'nt like me to tell, but I'll tell you-I don't mind telling you, for you feed the small singing birds. They pray to be kept from the sins of man; they pray for plinty, and for peace. They're the rale United Irishmen-the black bands of the air. I love the crows-Hurra for the crows—the coal black crows!"

And then he would wave his feather helmet, and shout and dance.

Poor Jack Purcel was kind to every living thing, but his heart was in our rookery, a square field, midway up the avenue that was filled with tall fir trees, planted before it was

Jack Purcel was called a natural, and he||imagined that trees would grow so near the knew it, and used to pun thereon, saying "it was better to be a natural than unnatural, which many people that warn't naturals were." He was a tall, thin, fantastic looking creature, whose clothes were most miraculously kept together, being a heap of threads and patches, stitched here and there with pack-thread or twine. Still Jack generally managed to have a clean shirt, and moreover took as much pleasure in arranging his hair, as if he were a young girl; and it fell on either side of his pale lank visage, in a way that would charm the hearts of our modern artists. The peculiarity of Jack's attire, however, was in a sort of conical cap which he formed of crows' feathers, and which he designated his helmet, and called upon every one to admire.

"For shame, Jack, to kill the poor birds and then steal their feathers."

sea. There, a colony of rooks had established themselves-long, long before I was born, and there they were suffered to remain unmolested; but as the young plantations grew up about the house, the rooks wished to emigrate; and while the denizens of their old world remained at home, they drove the young birds to the plantations, and here a war of extermination was commenced against them.Nests, eggs, and birds were destroyed with impunity, and poor Jack was in a state of frenzy. He used to go about with his bosom crammed full of young crows and crows' eggs, that he had saved from the fangs of the gardener's boys-and "keen" over his favorites when they died, as if he had lost his dearest relative.

"Ah thin, it's little yer mother thought whin she lined yer nest, and rocked with the storm over the wonderful shell that held ye-ye "Me kill?—Me!" he would exclaim, as poor birdeens—it's little she thought the end was his constant habit when excited, and this you'd come to, ye innocent craythurs. Ah! observation was certain to agitate him. God help us! we're all born-but those not "Me kill anything!-me!—who knows life, dead, don't know what's before them—and so feels life, loves life!-Me take life from any best-and sure the hand that made desolate living thing!—Me?—oh yarra! yarra! wir-yer nest, may stretch out for food yet, and ras thrue?-Me?-oh das deelish avour-have none to get.

neen!-or steal-is it me-shath!-shath !— "When the Almighty made paradise and it's enough to set me dancin' mad to hear the put the holy saints in it, and beasts and things likes!-Oh, the fine handsome black birdeens to cover the earth, he set the trees to shelter that knows the paths in the air, while mighty them, and the dwelling of the birds of the

If

air-he made both the one and the other; but stances. Jack was a great mar-plot. man is so unjust-birdeen agra bawn! that snares were set by the gardeners or gamehe says, 'I will have all the tree, though I keepers for vermin, Jack Purcel was sure to havn't the skill to build a nest in it, and am defeat their intentions by destroying the obligated to live in a mud house under it, still snares; and it was no uncommon thing for you sha'nt enjoy what I can't, because I am a the cook to find the chickens, set apart in a man and you are a bird-that's man's justice, particular coop for immediate use, set at libbirdeen a lanan"—and so he would go on forerty; and yet, when they were cooked Jack half the length of a spring day, mingling would eat them. He was often upbraided wisdom and folly together, as I never heard with that inconsistency, but he only replied them mingled since. Whenever I see a rook|| with his usual half laugh-half shout. now-and sometimes those that roost in the old trees at Lord Holland's, or the still older, I believe, at the Bishop's Palace of Falham, wing over our garden-I think of poor Jack Purcel, who interested me when a child in their movements.

Once, having detected a weasel, at the instant it had pounced upon a poor rabbit, and having made prisoners of them both, one under one arm, and the other under the other, he did not exactly know how to act.

After much deliberation, he let the rabbit go in a clover field; and then sitting down in his favorite rookery, despite the creature's struggles, he extracted the weasel's teeth with an old penknife, and then, as we told him, left the animal to starve.

"Well!" said he, "the times are bad, and when all's said and done, the Irish weasel won't be worse off than the Irish poor. Cook him up with fresh meat."

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Valentine's day, he always made his quarters good close to the gateway that led into the rookery. He gave names to particular crows, and affirmed that he knew them all.As the season advanced, woe to the urchin who attempted to ascend a tree, or pelt a crow; and Jack would watch the birds coming and going as a mother does the coming and going of her beloved children. When he saw a steady pair wheel off to seek food It was always pleasant to meet Jack in the for their young, he would stand under the country roads and bohreens,* for he was certree, and sing and talk as much nursery non-tain to say something quaint or strange. sense to the nestlings as would delight a par- One evening we found him gathering wild ish full of nurses. If the birds made a great flowers. Here," he exclaimed, "isn't this clamour, or as he called it a "bobbery," he daisy the very moralf of Mary Moore, with would grub up a handful of earthworms, as- her round white starry face, and yalla breast cend the tree, imitate the voice of the parent knot?—And this-this little blue forget-mecrows, in a most laughable manner, and hav-never,' that's my mother-my own mother ing fed the young, descend with the agility that's in heaven-they put her in the Abbeyof a squirrel, and then with great gravity in-yard, and say she's in heaven. The 'forgetform the old rooks, on their return, of the me-never' grows round her grave-over where benefit he had conferred upon their offspring. she's laid-and there are her eyes, sure I remember asking him, somewhat foolish- enongh. Here's the tansey-the bitter tanly, one morning-If the crows prayed more on sey-that's Molly the Cook-Molly the Cook, Sundays, than any other day?" of a fast day, in black lent, when she smells the meat and can't eat it-can't eat it-can't eat it!" And the idea of the cook being unable to partake of the savoury messes she took so much pleasure to prepare, was too much for his imagination. He would toss the flowers in the air, and then fling up his feathercap, and shout his wild senseless joy.

"No, Miss," replied Jack, "they pray as much every day, as Christians do on Sunday." Long observation had taught him which way the rooks would return after a predatory excursion, and it was no unusual thing for poor Jack Purcel to go and meet them and shout and dance when the dark flock came in sight. In winter, he never asked for food or raiment for himself, but begged unceasingly for the crows, and if refused by the servants, would appeal to the master.

Time passed on, and I left that part of the world, never to return to it but as a visiter; and modern improvement decreed that the old rookery should be uprooted. This was sorrowful news to poor Jack Purcel, who first prayed against such a course, and then preached against it, long and loudly. Of course, the poor nataral's remonstrances were made in vain, but the dispersing of the colony, and the noise of the woodman's axe had such an effect upon him, that, like a turbulent child, he was locked up until all was over.—

The Two Maidens.-Love.-Frank Kirkland.