immediate object; and for this the deep marl-pit, near which he had perpetrated it afforded a present facility, and raising the graceful and still warm form, that now reclined a helpless weight across one knee, in his nervous arms, he heaved it over the rough railing into the gulf beneath.

Gloomily he watched its descent as it sunk with a sullen plunge into the bosom of the dark deep waters, but ere the temporary agitation in the stagnant pool could subside into its former waveless calm, a cautious step on the gravel near him startled the murderer, and turning about in terror he perceived a man almost at his elbow, who said,

"No accident, I hope, was the occasion of that great splash?"

One glance relieved the guilty Barak of the apprehension of immediate detection, for he perceived that the eyes of him, who had in all probability been a witness of the deed, were sightless. It was, in fact, a blind beggar returning from the fair at Scrapeton.

To have remained perfectly silent under such circumstances would have been Barak Johnson's best security; but it is common for the guilty, in their excess of caution, to overshoot the mark, and he, judging it necessary to account for the plunge, replied,

"It was only one of the rails against which I was leaning just now gave way, and fell into the water.

"You must have thrown it in, and that with violence, to occasion such a plunge; but I could have sworn it had been produced by the fall of a heavier body than one of these rails," observed the blind man.

"How should you know the weight of these rails, since you cannot see them?" demanded Johnson, angrily, his natural irascibility getting the better of his caution.

"Doth it require the aid of sight to enable a man to judge of tangible objects?" said the beggar, running his stick along the railing as he spoke.

"Have a care of what you are about, my good fellow, or you will fall into the pit yourself," said Johnson, somewhat alarmed at this action.

"No fear of that, master," returned the blind man, "the rails are all firm in their places, and not one lacking. It needs not the witness of the eyes to detect a falsehood."

Barak Johnson had heard enough to convince him that his crime, though unseen, was not unsuspected, and seized with a sudden panic he fled in terror from the spot, taking not the direct road, but a circuitous path that led over the fields towards Woodfield.

Saralı Waters meantime had kept weary vigils that night, anxiously watching for the return of her thoughtless sister. After midnight was passed, her father, who had been sitting up with her till that hour, said He was persuaded Phillis would sleep at the house of her cousin," and went to bed.

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Sarah felt no such conviction; she knew that William Parry had, notwithstanding his displeasure, gone to the fair at nine that evening with the intention of inducing Phillis to return home at a decent hour. That he had failed to do so was evident; but she was assured that nothing would have tempted him to remain out all night, and had Phillis obstinately persisted in so doing, he would certainly have called to in

form her of her sister's intention therefore she still continued to expect her return, though at what time she knew not.

Hour after hour passed away, and Phillis came not. Sarah grew weary of her needle, put away her work, and took up a book; but the subject was dry and heavy, and finding it difficult to confine her attention to its pages, she threw it down, and softly unclosing the glass door that opened into the little garden, she went to the wicket-gate to listen. All was silent in the village, and the only house in which she saw a light was that of William Parry's mother, by which sign she knew that he was not yet returned. The church clock struck two while she stood at the gate, and marvelling at the protracted absence of the pair, she re-entered the house, snuffed her candle, resumed her book, and once more endeavoured to occupy herself in its pages. The attempt produced irresistible drowsiness, and she dropped asleep with the volume in her hand. Her slumber was heavy, but not refreshing; confused images of horror were present to her sleeping fancy, and she awoke with a sudden start, chilly, and with a mysterious feeling of dread on her mind. She found herself in profound darkness too, for the candle had burned out while she slept. Her heart throbbed fearfully for a moment, but presently recovering her self-possession she unclosed the shutter of the glass door, and felt reassured on perceiving that it was already morning. Anxious thoughts of her sister renewed her uneasiness. She went once more to the wicket and saw the candle in Mrs. Parry's chamber still dimly burning in the gray light of dawn, and feeling convinced that some distressing cause must have occasioned the protracted absence of both parties, she resolved to put on her bonnet and shawl, and walk a little way on the road leading to Scrapeton.

In the entrance of the marl-pit lane she encountered William Parry alone, and in much disorder.!

"Where is Phillis?" she demanded, in surprise.

"Ask me no questions," he replied, in an agitated tone, "Phillis and I have parted for ever."

"Indeed!" said Sarah, starting, "but where have you left her?” "Just by the marl-pit," returned he.

"Then I shall meet her in the course of a few minutes."

"Yes, unless she went back to the fair after I left her."

"But why did you leave her, William? Surely under any circumstances it was unkind to do so on such a night as this," said Sarah.

"Indeed I remained till she aggravated me beyond all powers of endurance; but I was wrong to leave her, and I will walk back with you, Sarah, till we meet her, if you will take my arm."

"I shall be thankful for your protection, William, but I would rather not take your arm," said Sarah, and they walked in silence and apart till they reached the marl-pit.

"It was just before we came to this spot that we parted," observed William; "therefore it is plain that she must have gone back to the fair, or we should have met her long ere this."

"Inconsiderate girl!" said Sarah, "I fear it is as you say, and as I am already so far on the road I am determined to proceed to Scrapeton, and endeavour to prevail upon her to return with me."

William Parry assented to the propriety of so doing, and continued to attend Sarah; but they walked as before, in silence, for both were engaged in a train of painful reflections, and their manners were mutually distant and constrained.

The clocks were striking four when they entered Scrapeton, which presented a revolting picture of the demoralizing effect of fairs on the lower classes of society. A scene which might indeed have excited a smile from a humorist, but could scarcely have been witnessed by a Christian without horror.

Some of the revellers were still up when William and Sarah arrived at the house of Sophy Cooper, for the little dwelling could not afford. beds for a tenth part of the dissipated young people who had assembled there on the preceding evening.

The appearance of Sarah, and the return of William, at an hour so extraordinary, excited great surprise, and some little speculation among the company; but when they proceeded to inquire if Phillis were not there, all present uttered an exclamation of wonder, and one of the young women replied in a tone of peculiar pertness,

"Surely, Mr. Parry, you ought to be able to give the best account of her, since she left the house under your protection, and we all considered it a mighty ungenteel action of yours to come and break up our pleasant party by quarrelling with her in the way you did, and forcing her away quite against her will."

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And," said another, "we all agreed that it was but a poor sample of what pretty Phillis Waters might expect as your wife, since you began to treat her in that sort of domineering fashion beforehand."

William Parry, without paying the slightest attention to these remarks, replied to Sarah's looks of consternation by snatching up his hat, and proceeding in quest of Phillis; but he could not learn that she had been seen by any one since she left the town in his company. He was now seriously alarmed, and his countenance betrayed that he was so, when he returned to Sarah, after a long and of course fruitless search for her absent sister.

The remembrance of the foreboding that some evil consequences would result from Phillis's visit to the fair, which had haunted her on the preceding day recurred to Sarah's mind, and she felt as if that dark presentiment had been already fulfilled. She experienced a sensation of sick and dizzy faintness, the effects of a sleepless night combined with agitation and anxious alarm.

When, however, she looked round her, the perceived that the tawdry over-dressed groups among whom she was seated, presented countenances even paler and more haggard than her own; for they had been wearied out with a day and night of restless riot, miscalled pleasure in which they had undergone more bodily fatigue and exhaustion of spirit than if they had been labouring at the treadmill.

With some of these the reaction of past excitement betrayed itself in the restless movements and twitching of their limbs, and the almost hysterical paroxysms of yawning. Some were leaning their aching heads on tables still covered with the unseemly remnants of their late feast. Others had fallen asleep in chairs, or even on the ground; while a few with whom the feverish excitement of gambling prevailed

over the weakness of the flesh, continued to play at cards and to bet on the chances of the game with as much vehemence, as if it were their only business on earth, and the sole purpose for which they had been called into existence.

Sarah contemplated this scene in which her sister had been so recently engaged, with feelings of sickening horror. The very atmosphere of the house seemed, to her, pollution; nor did she appear to draw her breath freely, till she was far on the road to Woodfield with William Parry.

They both experienced an uneasy sensation when they passed the marl-pit. William, because it was near this spot that he had parted with Phillis; and Sarah, whose nerves were totally unstrung, from the gloomy appearance of the deep, dark waters, and the sombre shade of the dank foliage with which its sides were overhung.

This impression they mutually confessed to each other when they arrived at Woodfield, and learned that Phillis had neither been seen nor heard of there; and William, when he parted from Sarah at her little garden-gate, went so far as to say that he would not rest till he had caused the pit to be searched, for he felt a strong conviction that some evil had befallen Phillis on that spot."

He then went home to speak to his mother, who had, he feared, been uneasy on account of his absence during the whole night, but he assured Sarah that he would return immediately, to assist in a further search for Phillis.

Barak Johnson, meantime, had been a trembling observer of all that passed in his neighbour's house-having returned to his own at an early hour. About seven o'clock, he saw the arrival of Sarah and William after their unsuccessful search for Phillis, and was convinced by their pale countenances, and looks of consternation and perplexity, that both had taken the alarm on account of her absence; but when he heard William Parry express his intention of searching the pit, he was filled with apprehension lest the discovery of her fate should attach suspicions of her murder upon himself. Under the influence of these terrors he began to ponder on the expediency of removing the body of his victim to some secret spot in Borough woods, and burying it there. But then he reflected that there would be greater danger of detection in carrying such a project into execution, than in letting it remain where it was.

"For," thought he, "the waters are dark and muddy, and the pit very deep and cavernous, and Parry will only make a cursory examination of the place, having no just reason to conclude that Phillis has actually been murdered. Might not her absence be accounted for under the more probable supposition that she had eloped with one of the officers of a regiment lately quartered in Scrapeton and its vicinity." And he felt actually angry with William Parry for not suggesting such a suspicion.

That thought did indeed cross Sarah's mind; but she had all along been impressed with a foreboding that something fatal had befallen her sister from her ill-starred visit to the fair, and now that presentiment appeared to her as verified.

Barak Johnson felt a strong inclination to say that he had seen Phillis,

in a postchaise with an officer, at an early hour, on the London road that morning; but then he feared to incur suspicion, by acknowledging that he had seen her at all. Next, he debated on sending a letter to her father as from a gentleman who had taken her into keeping; but this plan like the other was objectionable and fraught with danger, and before he could resolve on any scheme for removing from the minds of Phillis's friends the impression that she had been murdered, his deliberations were interrupted by the tumultuous tread and busy murmurs of an approaching multitude.

He ascended to his chamber-window, which commanded a view of the cross-roads at the entrance of Woodfield, and beheld a vast concourse of people advancing towards the village, from the direction of the marl-pit lane. His colour went and came, and his heart died within him, as the apprehension occurred to his guilty mind, that the body of his victim had already been discovered; but then he endeavoured to reassure his fluttered spirits by the thought, that these were some of the numerous visiters to the yesterday's fair, who had spent the night in the town, and were now returning in company to their respective houses. Yet, as the crowd drew nearer and nearer he was convinced both from their numbers and the vehemence of their gestures, and the loud and earnest manner in which they were discussing some subject of apparently great excitement to all parties, that something more than ordinary had occasioned the gathering together of such a throng, which momentarily increased; for he perceived that people from all quarters ran eagerly to join themselves to this moving mass.

Guilt is always apprehensive, and when Barak Johnson observed the demeanour of the people, and saw them enter Woodfield, his breath grew short, and his knees smote each other with an audible sound; what then were his feelings, when he plainly perceived that six men in the centre of the crowd, bore on their shoulders, extended on a gate, which had been taken from its hinges to form a temporary bier, a form which, though shrouded beneath a large cloak, too plainly displayed the outlines and proportions of the human figure, to be mistaken for any other object; while the rigid stiffness of its attitude, and its motionless composure denoted, no less than the solemnity of the steps of the bearers, and the grief, horror, and wonder, depicted on the countenances of the attendant multitude, that it was a corpse-the corpse of a murdered person.

And as it passed beneath the windows of Barak Johnson, he recognised, with speechless dismay, the long fair ringlets of Phillis Waters, some of which had escaped from beneath the cloak that covered her lifeless form, and hung dripping over the shoulders of one of the men who assisted in carrying her cold remains.

There was a general murmur, then a sudden hush and breathless silence among the dense crowd, as the melancholy group stopped at the door of her father's house, and the rude bier was carried slowly and cautiously within the little wicket-gate, through which she had so lately passed with light and buoyant steps, full of health, life, and loveliness, in all the pride of conscious beauty, attired in gala array. Poor Phillis, her cold, cold form was still clothed in the trappings of earthly vanity, though wet and discoloured by the dank, green waters