dry on a foreign shore. Perhaps her husband has run away and left her; or she has lost her circulars, or speculated too fondly on the red, or broke down in her martingale."

Moralizing thus upon the bit of muslin, I was leaning at 10h. 15m. against the hôtel door-post, when something blue loomed up in the distance-vast-inflated-enormous! What could it be? The Nassau balloon just arrived, perhaps, and Mr. Green sailing easily up the town, to drop his grappling in the little square here before the hôtel.

"Why, really—it can't be?—it is!—the same dress, held out upon the same red arm, the other at a right-angle to balance it; and, what with the thick barrel-figure of the girl, the two red arms, and the dress, the street was hardly wide enough. Clear the way, there! The red fingers scraped the right-hand corner, while the tenth flounce barely cleared the barber's window opposite. Make way¡ -a good sweep of the corner, to clear the trees,-that's it! The gentleman at the window thinks you are going to take him by the nose,-never mind. It is a triumph indeed! This is what we call 'getting-up' in Nassau. Look before you, you silly girl! not up at the first-floor windows. We are all right here, ma'am; do, please, for one moment to look down. Stop! let me open the double-door. One wheel more; and mind the spiked chains. Now then-muslin first!"

There was a rustle-a faint cry-a "Tankee, tankee,”—and the precious argosie, with royals, studding-sails, flying-kites, and flounces, sailed gloriously into port.

I merely mention this circumstance with a view to inform my fair country women, travelling, it may be, with only one dress, that at Wiesbaden, while you are taking your bath, and doing your hair, and just seeing how you look in the glass, that dress-however rumpled it may be, however limp, starchless, draggle-tailed, and down-fallen at 8h. 30m., can be made gloriously fit for church at 10h. 15m.

WHAT CAN SORROW DO?

WHAT can sorrow do? it changeth shining hair to grey;

Paleth the cheek-an emblem of mortality's decay;

Changeth the clear and truthful glance to dim unearthly light,

Whence gathering shadows round the heart shed dark and endless night.

What can sorrow do? it weaveth memories, and the mind

Prostrate in ruins layeth to its influence resigned;
Affection's healthful current, the sweetest and the best,
Lost amid floods of bitterness-the waters of unrest.

What can sorrow do? it vaunteth reason's boasted sway;
Philosophy's vain-glorious dreams, sets forth in cold array,

And when the combat's o'er and gained, 'tis found the foe hath reft
The heart of hope and innocence, and pride hath only left!
What can sorrow do? it bringeth the sinner home to God;
The stubborn will it bendeth, beneath His chastening rod :
As gold by fire is purified, from out that furnace dread,
The broken heart, by mercy cleansed, is heavenward gently led.
C. A. M. W.

CAPTAIN SPIKE;

OR, THE ISLETS OF THE GULF.

66

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE PILOT," RED ROVER," ETC.

IT has now become necessary to advance the time three entire days, and to change the scene to Key West. As this latter place may not be known to the world at large, it may be well to explain that it is a small sea-port, situate on one of the largest of the many low islands that dot the Florida Reef, that has risen into notice, or indeed into existence as a town, since the acquisition of the Floridas by the American Republic. For many years it was the resort of few besides wreckers, and those who live by the business dependent on the rescuing and repairing of stranded vessels, not forgetting the salvages. When it is remembered that the greater portion of the vessels that enter the Gulf of Mexico, stand close along this reef before the Trades, for a distance varying from one to two hundred miles, and that nearly everything which quits it is obliged to beat down its rocky coast in the Gulf stream, for the same distance, one is not to be surprised that the wrecks which so constantly occur, can supply the wants of a considerable population. To live at Key West is the next thing to being at sea. The place has sea-air, no other water than such as is preserved in cisterns, and no soil; or so little of the last as to render even a head of lettuce a rarity. Turtle is abundant, and the business of "turtling" forms an occupation additional to that of wrecking. As might be expected in such circumstances, a potato is a far more precious thing than a turtle's egg; and a sack of the tubers would probably be deemed a sufficient remuneration for enough of the materials of callipash and callipee to feed all the aldermen extant.

Of late years the government of the United States has turned its attention to the capabilities of the Florida Reef as an advanced naval station; a sort of Downs, or St. Helen's Roads, for the West India seas. As yet, little has been done beyond making the preliminary surveys; but the day is probably not very far distant, when fleets will lie at anchor among the islets described in our earlier chapters, or garnish the fine waters of Key West. For a long time it was thought that even frigates would have a difficulty in entering and quitting the port of the latter, but it is said that recent explorations have discovered channels capable of admitting anything that floats. Still, Key West is a town yet in its chrysalis state; possessing the promise, rather than the fruition of the prosperous days which are in reserve. It may be well to add that it lies a very little north of the twenty-fourth degree of latitude, and in a longitude quite five degrees west from Washington. Until the recent

conquests in Mexico it was the most southern possession of the American government, on the eastern side of the continent; Cape St. Lucas, at the extremity of Lower California, however, being two degrees further south.

It will give the foreign reader a more accurate notion of the character of Key West, if we mention a fact of quite recent occurrence. A very few weeks after the closing scenes of this tale, the town in question was in a great measure washed away. A hurricane brought in the sea upon all these islands and reefs, water running in swift currents over places that within the memory of man were never before submerged. The lower part of Key West was converted into a raging sea, and everything in that quarter of the place disappeared. The foundation being of rock, however, when the ocean retired, the island came into view again, and industry and enterprise set to work to repair the injuries.

The government has established a small hospital for seamen at Key West. Into one of the rooms of the building thus appropriated our narrative must now conduct the reader. It contained but a single patient, and that was Spike. He was on his narrow bed, which was to be but the precursor of a still narrower tenement, the grave. In the room with the dying man were two females, in one of whom our readers will at once recognise the person of Rose Budd, dressed in deep mourning for her aunt. At first sight, it is probable that a casual spectator would mistake the second female for one of the ordinary nurses of the place. Her attire was well enough, though worn awkwardly, and as if its owner were not exactly at her ease in it. She had the air of one in her best attire, who was unaccustomed to be dressed above the most common mode. What added to the singularity of her appearance, was the fact that, while she wore no cap, her hair had been cut into short, gray bristles, instead of being long and turned up, as is usual with females. To give a sort of climax to this uncouth appearance, this strange-looking creature chewed tobacco !

The woman in question, equivocal as might be her exterior, was employed in one of the commonest avocations of her sex; that of sewing. She held in her hand a coarse garment, one of Spike's in fact, which she seemed to be intently busy in mending. Although the work was of a quality that invited the use of the palm and sail-needle, rather than that of the thimble and the smaller implements known to seamstresses, the woman appeared awkward at her business, as if her coarse-looking and dark hands refused to lend themselves to an occupation so feminine. Nevertheless, there were touches of a purely womanly character about this extraordinary person, and touches that particularly attracted the atteation, and awakened the sympathy of the gentle Rose, her companion. Tears occasionally struggled out from beneath her eyelids, crossed her dark sunburnt cheek, and fell on the coarse canvass garment that lay in her lap. It was after one of these sudden and strong exhibitions of feeling, that Rose approached her, laid her little fair hand in a friendly way, though unheeded, on the other's shoulder, and spoke to her in her kindest and softest tones. "I do really think he is reviving, Jack," said Rose, “and that you may yet hope to have an intelligent conversation with him."

"They all agree he must die," answered Jack Tier, for it was he, appearing in the garb of his proper sex, after a disguise that had now lasted fully twenty years,-" and he will never know who I am, and that

I forgive him. He must think of me in another world, though he is not able to do it in this; but it would be a great relief to his soul to know that I forgive him."

"To be sure, a man must like to take a kind leave of his own wife before he closes his eyes for ever, and I dare say that it would be a great relief for you to tell him that you have forgotten his desertion of you, and all the hardships it has brought upon you, in searching for him, and in earning your own livelihood as a common sailor."

"I shall not tell him I've forgotten it, Miss Rose; that would be untrue, and there shall be no more deception between us; but I shall tell him that I forgive him, as I hope God will one day forgive all my sins.” "It is certainly not a light offence to desert a wife in a foreign land, and then to seek to deceive another woman," quietly observed Rose. "He's a willain !" muttered the wife,-" but-but-"

"You forgive him, Jack-yes, I'm sure you do. You are too good a Christian to refuse to forgive him."

"I'm a woman a'ter all, Miss Rose, and that I believe is the truth of it. I suppose I ought to do as you say, for the reason you mention; but I'm his wife, and once he loved me, though that has long been over. When I first knew Stephen, I'd the sort of feelin's you speak of, and was a very different creatur' from what you see me to-day. Change comes over us all with years and suffering."

Rose did not answer, but she stood looking intently at the speaker, more than a minute. Change had indeed come over her, if she had ever possessed the power to please the fancy of any living man. Her features had always seemed diminutive and mean for her assumed sex, as her voice was small and cracked; but, making every allowance for the probabilities, Rose found it difficult to imagine that Jack Tier had ever possessed, even under the high advantages of youth and innocence, the attractions so common to her sex. Her skin had acquired the tanning of the sea, the expression of her face had become hard and worldly, and her habits contributed to render those natural consequences of exposure and toil even more than usually marked and decided. By saying "habits," however, we do not mean that Jack had ever drunk to excess, as happens with so many seamen; for this would have been doing her injustice; but she smoked and chewed; practices that intoxicate in another form, and lead nearly as many to the grave as excess in drinking. Thus all the accessories about this singular being partook of the character of her recent life and duties. Her walk was between a waddle and a seaman's roll, her hands were discoloured with tar and had got to be full of knuckles, and even her feet had degenerated into that flat, broadtoed form, that, perhaps, sooner distinguishes caste, in connection with outward appearances, than any one other physical peculiarity. Yet this being had once been young; had once been even fair; and had once possessed that feminine air and lightness of form, that as often belongs to the youthful American of her sex, perhaps, as to the girl of any other nation on earth. Rose continued to gaze at her companion, for some time, when she walked musingly to a window that looked out upon the port.

"I am not certain whether it would do him good, or not, to see this sight," she said, addressing the wife kindly, doubtful of the effect of her words, even on the latter. "But here are the sloop of war, and several other vessels."

"Ay, she's there; but never will his foot be put on board the Swash again. When he bought that brig I was still young and agreeable to him, and he gave her my maiden-name, which was Mary, or Molly Swash. But that is all changed; I wonder he did not change the name of his vessel, with his change of feelin's."

"Then you did really sail in the brig, in former times, and knew the seaman whose name you assumed ?"

"Many years. Tier, with whose name I made free, on account of his size and some resemblance to me in form, died under my care, and his protection fell into my hands, which first put the notion into my head of hailing as his representative. Yes, I knew Tier in the brig, and we were left ashore at the same time; I, intentionally, I make no question; and he because Stephen Spike was in a hurry, and did not choose to wait for a man. The poor fellow caught the yellow fever the very next day, and did not live forty-eight hours. So the world goes; them that wish to live, die; and them that wants to die, live."

"You have had a hard time for one of your sex, poor Jack-quite twenty years a sailor, did you not tell me?"

For

"Every day of it, Miss Rose; and bitter years have they been. the whole of that time have I been in chase of my husband, keeping my own secret, and slaving like a horse for a livelihood."

"You could not have been old when he left-that is-when you parted?"

"Call it by its true name, and say at once-when he desarted me. I was under thirty by two or three years, and was still like my own sex to look on. All that is changed since; but I was comely, then."

66

Why did Capt. Spike abandon you, Jack? you have never told me that."

"Because he fancied another. And ever since that time he has been fancying others instead of remembering me. Had he got you, Miss Rose, I think he would have been content for the rest of his days."

"Be certain, Jack, I should never have consented to marry Captain Spike."

"You're well out of his hands," answered Jack, sighing heavily, which was much the most feminine thing she had done during the whole conversation; "well out of his hands, and God be praised it is so! He should have died before I would let him carry you off the island, husband or no husband!"

"It might have exceeded your power to prevent it, under other cir

cumstances.

Rose now continued looking out of the window in silence. Her thoughts reverted to her aunt and Biddy, and tears rolled down her cheeks as she remembered the love of one and the fidelity of the other. Their horrible fate had given her a shock that at first menaced her with a severe fit of illness; but her strong good sense and excellent constitution, both sustained by her piety and Harry's manly tenderness, had brought her through the danger, and left her as the reader now sees her, struggling with her own griefs, in order to be of use to the still more unhappy woman who had so singularly become her friend and companion.

The reader will readily have anticipated that Jack Tier had early made the females on board the Swash her confidants. Rose had known the outlines of her history from the first few days they were at sea to

VOL. XXIII.

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