past-and, wearied and mortified with his reflections, he at length followed his better half into that profound slumber which the length and subject of his harangue had so comfortably ensured her.

The morning came, and brightly beamed the sun—that is, as brightly as ever it beams in London. The office hour arrived; and Mr. Harding proceeded, not by Charlotte-street, to Somerset House, such was his dread of seeing the ominous woman. It is impossible to describe the effect produced upon him, by the apprehension of encountering her; if he heard a female voice behind him in the street, he trembled, and feared to look around, lest he should behold Martha. In turning a corner, he proceeded carefully and cautiously, lest he should come upon her unexpectedly;-in short, wherever he went, whatever he did, his actions, his movements, his very words, were controlled and constrained by the horror of beholding her again.

The malediction she had uttered rang incessantly in his ears; nay, such possession had it taken of him, that he had written down the words, and sealed the document which con. tained them, "Thrice shall you see me before you die. My visitings will be dreadful; but the third will be the last!"

"Calais" was not more deeply imprinted on our queen's heart, than these lines upon that of Harding, but he was ashamed of the strength of his feelings and placed the paper wherein he had recorded them, at the very bottom of his desk.

Meanwhile Frederick Langdale was unremitting in his attentions to Maria: but, as is too often the case, the bright sunshine of their loves was clouded. Her health, always delicate, now appeared still more so, and at times, her anxious parents felt a solicitude on her account, new to them; for decided symptoms of consumption had shown themselves, which the faculty, although they spoke of them lightly to the fond mother, and to the gentle patient, treated with such care and caution, as gave alarm to those who could see the progress of the fatal disease, which was unnoticed by Maria herself, who anticipated parties, and pleasure, and gayeties, in the coming spring, which the doctors thought it but too probable she might never enjoy.

That Mr. Langdale's punctilio or Mrs. Harding's excessive desire for apparent juvenility, should have induced the postponement of Maria's marriage, was indeed a melancholy cir

cumstance. The agitation, the surprise, the hope deferred, which weighed upon the sweet girl's mind, and that doubting dread of something unexpected which lovers always feel, bore down upon her spirits and injured her health; whereas, had the marriage been celebrated, the relief she would have experienced from all her apprehensions, added to the tour of France and Italy, which the happy couple were to take immediately after their union, would have restored her to health, while it ensured her happiness. This, however, was not to be.

It was now some three months since poor Mr. Harding's rencontre with Martha; and habit, and time, and constant avocation, had conspired to free his mind from the dread she at first inspired. Again he smiled and joked, again he enjoyed society, and again dared to take the nearest road to Somerset House; nay, he had so far recovered from the unaccountable terror he had originally felt, that he went to his desk, and selecting the paper wherein he had set down the awful denunciation of the hag, deliberately tore it into bits, and witnessed its destruction in the fire, with something like real satisfaction, and a determination never more to think upon so silly an affair.

Frederick Langdale was as usual, with his betrothed, and Mrs. Harding, when his curricle was driven to the door to convey him to Tattersall's, where his father had commissioned him to look at a horse, or horses, which he intended to purchase; for Frederick was, of all things in the world, the best possible judge of a horse. Mr. Harding, however, in order to have the full advantage of two heads, which, as the proverb says, are better than one, the worthy father-in-law elect proposed accompanying the youth to the auctioneers' yard at Hyde-park-corner, it being one of those privileged days when the laborers in our public offices make holiday. The proposal was hailed with delight by the young man, who, in order to show due deference to Mr. Harding, gave him the reins, and bowing their adieux to the ladies at the window, away they went, the splendid horses prancing and curveting, fire flaming from their eyes, and smoke breathing from their nostrils.

The charioteer, however, soon found that the horses were somewhat beyond his strength, even putting his skill wholly out of the question, and in turning into Russell-street, proposed surrendering the reins to Frederick. By some misunderstanding of words in the alarm which Harding felt, Frederick did not take the reins which he tendered to him in great agita

tion. They slipped over the dashing iron between the horses, who, thus freed from restraint, reared wildly in the air, and plung ing forward dashed the vehicle against a post, and precipitated Frederick and Harding on the curb-stone; the off-horse kicked desperately as the carriage became entangled and impeded, and struck Frederick a desperate blow on the head. Harding, whose right arm and collar-bone were broken, raised himself on his left hand, and saw Frederick weltering in blood, apparently lifeless, before him. The infuriated animals again plunged forward with the shattered remnant of the carriage, and as this object was removed from his sight, the wretched father-in-law beheld, looking upon the scene with a fixed and unruffled countenance-Martha, the Gypsy.

It was doubtful whether the appearance of this horrible vision, coupled as it was with the verification of her prophecy, had not a more dreadful effect upon Mr. Harding than the sad reality before him. He trembled, sickened, fainted, and fell senseless on the ground.

Assistance was promptly procured, and the wounded sufferers were carefully removed to their respective dwellings.Frederick Langdale's sufferings were much greater than those of his companion, and in addition to severe fractures of two of his limbs, the wound upon the head presented a most terrible appearance, and excited the greatest alarm in his medical attendants.

Mr. Harding, whose temperate course of life was greatly advantageous to his case, had suffered comparatively little a simple fracture of the arm and dislocation of the collar-bone, (which was the extent of his misfortune,) were by skilful treatment and implicit obedience to professional commands, soon pronounced in a state of improvement; but a wound had been inflicted which no doctor could heal. The conviction that the woman, whose anger he had incurred, had, if not the power of producing evil, at least the power to foretell it, and that he had twice again to see her before the fulfilment of her prophecy, struck deep into his mind; and although he felt himself more at ease when he had communicated to Mrs. Harding the fact of having seen the gypsy at the moment of the accident, it was impossible for him to rally from the shock which his nerves had received; it was in vain he tried to shake off the perpetual apprehension of again beholding her.

Frederick Langdale remained for some time in a very precarious state. All visitors were excluded from his room, and

a wretched space of two months passed, during which his affectionate Maria had never been allowed to see him, nor to write to, nor to hear from him; while her constitution was gradually giving way to the constant operation of solicitude and

sorrow.

Mr. Harding meanwhile recovered rapidly, but his spirits did not keep pace with his mending health; the dread he felt of quitting his house, the tremor excited in his breast by a knocking at the door, or the approach of a footstep, lest the intruder should be the basilisk Martha, were not to be described; and the appearance of his poor Maria did not tend to cheer the gloom which hung over him.

When at length Frederick was sufficiently recovered to receive visitors, Maria was not sufficiently well to visit him: she was too rapidly sinking into an early grave, and even the physician himself appeared desirous of preparing her parents for the worst; while she, full of the symptomatic prospectiveness of disease, still talked anticipatingly of future happiness, when Frederick would be sufficiently re-established to visit her.

At length, however, the doctors suggested a change of air, a suggestion instantly attended to, but alas! too late the weakness of the poor girl was such, that upon a trial of her strength it was found inexpedient to attempt her removal.

In this terrible state, separated from him whose all she was, did the exemplary patient linger, and life seemed flickering in her flushing cheek; and her eye was sunken, and her parched lip quivered with pain.

It was at length agreed, that on the following day Frederick Langdale might be permitted to visit her :-his varied fractures were reduced, and the wound on the head had assumed a favorable appearance. The carriage was ordered to convey him to the Hardings, at one, and the physician advised by all means that Maria should be apprised of, and prepared for, the meeting, the day previous to its taking place. Those who are parents, and those alone, will be able to understand the tender solicitude, the weary caution with which both her father and mother proceeded in a disclosure, so important, as the medical men thought, to her recovery-so careful that the coming joy should be imparted gradually to their suffering child, and that all the mischiefs resulting from an abrupt announcement should be avoided.

They sat down by her-spoke of Frederick-Maria joined in the conversation-raised herself in her bed-by degrees,

hope was excited that she might soon again see him-this hope was gradually improved into certainty-the period at which it might occur spoken of-that period again progressively diminished the anxious girl caught the whole truth-she knew it -she was conscious that she should behold him on the morrow -she burst into a flood of tears, and sank down upon her pillow.

At the moment, the bright sun, which was shining in all its splendor, beamed into the room, and fell strongly upon her flushed countenance.

"Draw down the blind, my love," said Mrs. Harding to her husband. Harding rose and proceeded to the window.

A shriek of horror burst from him-" She is there!" exclaimed the agonized man.

"Who?" cried his astonished wife.

"She-she-the horrid she !"

Mrs. Harding ran to the window, and beheld standing on the opposite side of the street, with her eyes fixed attentively on the house-Martha, the Gypsy.

"Draw down the blind, my love, and come away; pray, come away," said Mrs. Harding.

Harding drew down the blind.

"What evil is at hand? What misery is impending?" sobbed Harding.

A loud scream from his wife, who had returned to the bedside, was the horrid answer to his painful question.

Maria was dead!

Twice of the thrice had he seen this dreadful fiend in human shape each visitation was (as she had foretold) to surpass the preceding one, in its importance of horror-what could surpass this?

There, before the afflicted parents, lay their innocent child stretched in the still sleep of death; neither of them believed it true-it seemed like a dreadful dream. Harding was bewildered, and turned from the corpse of his beloved daughter to the window he had just left. Martha was gone-and he heard her singing a wild and joyous air at the other end of the

street.

The servants were summoned-medical aid was called in, but it was too late! and the wretched parents were doomed to mourn their loved, their lost Maria. George, her fond and affectionate brother, who was at Oxford, hastened from all the academic honors which were waiting him, to follow to the grave his beloved sister.