currence to accident, it seemed as if they might wreak their malice with perfect impunity. But they were mistaken. The quick eye of George followed every motion; and sufficiently acquainted with nautical affairs to understand and explain the malicious evolutions which he witnessed, his testimony would be of momentous weight against them. Aware of this, one of the owners of the steamboat, who, before unperceived, had also been walking on the bank and looking on the nimble vessel, now approached him, to inquire if he had observed the occurrence, and noticed that it was the result of premeditated design.

To this George gave a ready affirmative, expressed in such terms of warmth against the conduct of those in the sloop, as the unjustifiable nature of the transaction authorized. Turning to Fanny, he observed, "You, too, Miss Dayton, beheld the whole affair. Do you not agree with me that it was the result of malicious intention on the part of the sloop?"

Fanny was now in a dreadful dilemma, but there was no retreating; she felt that the keen eye of George was riveted on her glowing face; and with a blushing cheek and faltering voice, ascribed by him to any but the right cause, acknowledged that she had witnessed the disastrous circumstance, and fully agreed, she added, with Mr. Audley, that the sloop was entirely to blame.

The Rubicon was now passed! and the thoughtless Fanny had subjected herself to a mortification and exposure which she little anticipated. Before retiring to rest that night a subpoena was received by herself and George, summoning both of them to attend a Court, on a specified day, to give their evidence in an action, brought by the proprietors of the damaged steamboat against the proprietors of the sloop.

I shall now hasten to the conclusion of this story. It is unnecessary to describe the feelings which agitated

the breast of Fanny, during the interval, who sedulously concealed from her companion, Mary, all knowledge of the circumstance. Her father, being unfortunately absent from home, could not interpose his authority to prevent her appearance at court; and all arguments urged by the unfortunate girl against becoming a witness, were met by George with stronger argument in favour of it. A large party, he told her, had been marshalled for the purpose of making the circumstance appear an accident; and duty and honour required that they, providentially placed where they had witnessed the whole occurrence, should unhesitatingly step forward, and support the cause of truth. His feelings warmly enlisted in the subject, the arguments and persuasions of George were uttered with an earnestness and eloquence which she could not resist; and she consented to accompany him to the dreaded trial, provided her evidence should not be called, unless it became positively necessary, which she secretly prayed might not be the case.

The appointed day at last arrived. Fanny would have been glad to plead indisposition as an excuse for remaining at home; but she feared that George would see into her motive and cast her off for ever. Thus retreating became as difficult and hazardous as continuance in her course of tergiversation; and with a pale cheek, a desperate heart, and a trembling hand, she adjusted her head-dress, and throwing a mantle around her shoulders, sallied out with George to the appointed place of trial. Contrary to her hope, she had not been long seated, before she was called to the witnesses' stand. No language can describe the rush of blood from her heart to her cheeks, and back again to her heart; the cold shiver that ran through her veins, and the swelling emotion of her breast, as with an unsteady step and a quivering lip, she walked towards the part of the room where a seat had been

prepared for her. George, on whose arm she leaned, felt that she was trembling like an aspen leaf, and whispered something in her ear for the purpose of reassuring her. But the moment was one of too trying a nature for his and her united efforts to still the tumults of her agonizing emotions. Her hand was on the sacred volume; the words of the oath were proposed, and her lips, now nearly as white as its pages, kissed them in token of affirmation. The following was the first question proposed to her:

"Miss Frances Dayton," asked the lawyer, "did you behold, on a certain day, (specifying the_date) the sloop Nancy run against the steamboat Enterprise ?"

With a convulsive effort, that seemed to tear her heart out, Fanny answered in a scarcely audible voice, "I did."

She was required to state from what point of view. she beheld the occurrence, and whether according to her impression, it was the result of accident or design, With much hesitation, and after many pauses, her answer to the interrogatories was at last given, and the lawyer of the opposite side rose to question her. There had been a considerable stir in the court during the time of Fanny's examination, occasioned by a young farmer, who was interested in the ownership of the sloop, and whom report stated to have once been a suitor of Fanny, but who had been rejected after receiving several marks of encouragement. bustle was created by his forcing his way through the crowd, to whisper something in the ear of the lawyer engaged for the defence. The first question to the trembling witness was one of awful import:

The

"Miss Frances Dayton," said he, "are you or are you not near-sighted?"

A peal of thunder could not have more astounded the hearers. With an anxious and bursting eye,

George gazed on the fair equivocator, who, at first striving to reply, turned as red as an autumnal sunset, then as pale as death, and, at last bursting into a flood of tears, fell fainting on the floor!

Much more need not be said. The tissue of falsehoods by which George had been deceived was now unravelled to his astonished view; the delusion was dissipated, and he beheld Fanny Dayton in her true colours-a creature of delicate and impressive loveliness, but of misguided mind. Of course all thoughts of marriage were now abandoned. He immediately left that part of the country, with the determination of making the European tour, his intentions in relation to which had been suspended by his attachment to Fanny.

Several years have now gone by since the occurrences related in this story took place; and George at the present time is the happy husband of Mary Elwin. How this union was brought about may, perhaps, be related in a future volume; but I must now leave the reader to deduce the obvious moral from what has already been written.

Poor Fanny, as she became sadly convinced by the result, was near-sighted in a double sense; but reformed by the cruel ordeal to which she had been exposed, she now owns that her doom was just. Her father has lately died; and sole inheritress of his large estate, she spends her time in devising and performing such acts of munificence and benevolence, as may well atone for her former impropriety.

A WATCH IN THE MAIN-TOP.

WHEN I was a reefer, I once had the evil fortune to sail under the command of a captain, who, in nautical technicals, was very justly termed the hardest horse in the navy; or, in other words, with a tyrannical ignoramus, by the name of Crayton, who I sincerely believe was cordially hated, by all who did not despise him too much to allow of the former feeling. Among other vexatious means which he devised for the purpose of annoying his officers, was that of having a regular sea-watch of midshipmen, night and day, in the tops, of which there was about as much need, in those piping times of peace, as there is for a ringtail in a gale of wind. It happened on one clear moonlight night, when we had a spanking wind on the quarter, and were cutting along through the blue sea, with as much sail set as we could cleverly stagger under, going at the rate of about nine, two, that it was my turn, when the mid-watch was called, to take the main-top. This was no very disagreeable place, after all, when the weather was pleasant, and the wind steady; for (be it spoken in a whisper) we would sometimes on such occasions, so far infringe upon our military duty as to stow ourselves snugly away, in a coil of rigging, and snooze out an hour or two of the long and solitary watch. For my own part, I had done this so often that the timidity and caution at first S