Where are the leaves that were on that auld tree at Martinmas? The west wind has made

it bare-and I'm stripped too. Do you see that saugh-tree? It's but a blackened, rotten stump now. I've sat under it many a bonny summer afternoon, when it hung its gay garlands ower the hoppling water. I've sat there, and" (elevating her voice,) "I've held you on my knee, Henry Bertram, and sang ye sangs of the auld barons and their bloody wars. It will néer be green again, and Meg Merrilies will never sing blithe sangs mair! But ye'll no forget her, and ye'll gar big up the auld wa's for her sake, and " (here the great actress changed completely the tone of her voice, and her stooping gait, and seemed to tower into superhuman stature ;)" and let somebody live there, that's ower gude to fear them of another warld, for if ever the dead came back amang the living, I'll be seen in this glen mony a night after these crazed banes are in the mould !"

At these tragic parts, Miriam's eyes were

streaming with tears. At the death-scene of Meg Merrilies she wept bitterly.

As may be imagined, so novel a spectacle excited a good deal of sensation in the immediate neighbourhood of the box in which Gerald and Miriam sat.

"What a

"What exquisite sensibility!" beautiful girl!" "Who is she?" and similar queries began to be heard.

A knot of fashionably-dressed young men had been canvassing her for some time, and it was amusing to listen to their conversation, and hear the different versions of Miriam's history which were given.

"Lovejoy, who is that splendid creature?" 66 Don't you know? An opera dancer. La Signorina Zampieri."

"An opera dancer with such sensibility! Pooh! you're selling me."

"Well, then, the on dit is, she's a girl from the country, a chère amie of Gerald Lindor, the Poet."

who the lady is, who is causing such a sensation in yonder box?" said Lady Augusta.

Mr. Sapling replied in a very affected tone of voice :

"The lady! Why, you know, she's not exactly what you call a call a lady. She's a girla young woman-a person; and, as she's in the box with that eccentric fellah, Gerald Lindor, one can easily imagine that she's not quite-the thing-I mean, quite respectable, you krow. In fact, I heard one fellah offer to bet with another fellah, just now, that she was his chère amie. Let me see-was it Randan? No, it was Loosefish said she was his chère amie, and Randan said they were privately married. I think Loosefish stands to win, for Lindor was looking as fierce as a tiger at the fellahs. By the way, what a singular fellah that Lindor is! He don't believe in Aristocracy, nor Religion, nor anything established—'

"My dear Lady Augusta, ain't you well?"

exclaimed the exquisite, interrupting himself suddenly.

Lady Augusta's colour came and went

rapidly.

"It's-it's the heat," she murmured; box is stifling."

"this

However, as Lady Augusta did not recover, when exposed to the current of air in the corridor, Lady Veneer proposed that they should go home. Soon a pair of leathern lungs announced to the immediate neighbourhood, that "the Earl of Belair's carriage stops the way." A dazzling vision of aristocratic beauty flitted through the night-air for a moment, contrasting strangely with the wretched, draggled women who sold playbills, and other unfortunates whom curiosity had drawn to the spot. A fragrant perfume hit the sense of the adjacent by-standers. There was a fleeting pressure of a white arm, and a delicately gloved hand, on the shoulder of the Honorable Mr. Sapling, and when the carriage door was shut, and the steps banged

up, and the liveried flunkey had ascended to his perch in the rear, and the wheels were in rapid motion; the patrician beauty, whose luxury and apparent happiness had sent a thrill of envy to many a bosom that evening, no longer needing the stimulus of pride to control her feelings, gave way to audible sobs.