steady, unceasing motion; and round and round he went with it, while sense remained, besieging Hänchen with entreaties, promises, and wild impotent threats, which were all equally disregarded, till by degrees feeling and perception failed him, and he saw and heard no one. He fell senseless at the bottom of the engine, but even then his inanimate body continued to be whirled round as before; for Hänchen did not dare trust appearances in such a villain, and would not venture to suspend the working of the mill, or stop the mill gear and tackle from running at their fullest speed.

At length she heard a loud knocking at the door, and flew to open it. It was her master and his family, accompanied by several of his neighbours, all in the utmost excitement and wonder at seeing the mill-sails in full swing on a Sunday, and still more when they had found the poor child lying bound upon the grass, who, however, was too terrified to give them any account of what had happened. Hänchen, in a few words, told all; and then her spirit, which had sustained her through such scenes of terror, gave way under the sense of safety and relief, and she fell fainting in their arms, and was with much difficulty recovered. The machinery of the mill was at once stopped, and the inanimate ruffian dragged from his dreadful prison. Heinrich, too, was brought forth from the miller's chamber, and both were in a short time sent bound, under a strong escort, to Bonn, where they soon after met the reward of their crimes.

The story of this extraordinary act of presence of mind concludes by telling us that Hänchen, thus effectually cured of her penchant for her unworthy suitor, became eventually the wife of the miller's eldest son, and thus lived all her life on the scene of her imminent danger and happy deliverance.*

From "The Rhine," by Joseph Snowe, Esq.

A RUSTIC HEROINE.

THE following story of village heroism is given from a private letter; the names having been changed :

"I know of no higher proof of courage than was shown last week by a poor woman in this parish. To those who do not know the parties it will be difficult to give an idea of the bravery she exhibited. A father and son were fighting !—it seems too horrible to write-I would rather say two men were fighting; one an old, but still powerful man; the other a ruffian fellow of thirty, who set all the parish at defiance; his passions as violent as his body was strong and giant-like. The woman had been hired to wash, and she had just finished a hard day's work in another room when this battle began. The old man had the worst of it; his wife had prayed for mercy for him, and she had been kicked out of the room; not a man in the farm-yard dared to interfere; a few women, lookers on, went into fits, hysterics, &c. In this state of things Betty Burton thrust herself between the ruffian and his victim, and laid hold of his arm, and hung with all her might upon it. He swore, of course, and threw her on one side, telling her to be gone, or he would break every bone in her skin. Do, if you dare, John Page,' she said; and while his furious eyes were glaring in astonishment upon her, she again placed herself upon the old man, and holding up her doubled fist at the other, she said: 'I dare you to touch me.'

"For the first time in his life the villain had met with a master spirit, and he quailed under it. The old man had sunk on the floor; the ribs on one side had been broken; but while the contest was carried on he succeeded in crawling

away to the stable. The fellow, whose first object had been

to turn the old man out of the house, now threatened vengeance to any who went near. My heroine paid no attention to his threats, but taking a light in her hand she went to the stable, raised the old man's head on her lap, and spoke words of kindness to him; she succeeded in the end in getting him to a neighbour's house. The good man of that house would have interfered, but he was afraid of being murdered!! But for the interference of this brave woman the old man must have been murdered; the son acknowledges this, for his passions are not to be controlled by any one-but Betty Burton.

6

A subsequent letter says" I have heard the story from Betty Burton's own mouth since I wrote to you ; but I do not know that there is any material difference. She placed herself between the ruffian and his victim, 'But,' she said, such arms as these were no match for him, but I managed to get a tight gripe of his collar, and I hung there whilst the old gentleman crawled away to the stable. Then John said he'd take care he did not come in any more, and he forbid anybody going to him; but I was not going to be ordered by him; so I put a candle into the lanthorn, and called my boy Bill, and went to get him up. He said, I will lie here and die, Betty;' but I got his head in my lap, and Bill cried over him, and said, 'Don't leave him a sixpence, Mr. Page'— 1 mean to patronize Bill forthwith.'

"I hope you are sufficiently interested in my poor heroine to bear with me while I tell you that she is one of the women that your late dear sister visited with me. She was then beautiful; in proof of this I may tell you that H- took her picture at three different times, and she was in the exhibition twice. You would find it hard to believe this. Her curling brown hair is now as white as snow, and, except a fine, erect person, there is scarcely a trace of beauty left. She married at fifteen, and she has suffered from a large family, poverty, sickness, and sorrow; they are still pressing hard upon her, and they have nearly done their work.'

THE ESCAPE OF MRS. SPENCER SMITH.

Ar the time of the French taking possession of Venice in June, 1806, Mrs. Spencer Smith, wife of the English ambassador at Constantinople, and sister-in-law of Sir Sidney Smith, chanced to be residing there with her two children. Her health had been too weak and suffering to allow her to accompany her husband on his return to England; and Venice, both on account of its climate and as being the residence of her sister and brother-in-law, the Count and Countess Attems, had been fixed upon for her home, till she should be able to bear the colder air of England. As her health obliged her to live in a very retired manner, it was not thought that the new order of things need in the least affect her plans. She applied at once to General Lauriston, commander of the French forces, for permission to remain undisturbed in her present residence. He most politely granted her request, and also furnished her with a passport, in case she should wish to leave Venice for any other Italian city. It soon, however, proved that she had done ill to trust French promises, for on Buonaparte's receiving the particulars of the taking of Venice, his grudge against the hero of Acre prompted him to the dishonourable measure of reversing his general's assurances; and he sent instant orders that Mrs. Spencer Smith and her children should be carried prisoners to Valenciennes.

On attending the first summons from the police, she was declared to be under arrest as a French prisoner; but, veiling the real intentions of the French government, they informed her that her residence for the future must be Bassano. She demanded to know the reason why she was thus treated, and

Her own

was answered, "Your country and your name. country was not England, for her father, the Baron Herbert, was a German, and her birth-place was Constantinople, the seat of her father's embassy. But such arguments were set aside by M. Lagarde, head of the police, who told her, her arrest was amply justified by the name of Smith, of which she could not divest herself; and her being sister-in-law of Sir Sidney Smith and wife of Mr. Spencer Smith (who had so ably forwarded and assisted his brother's plans), placed her in a situation that precluded any mitigation of the order of imprisonment. She had, therefore, no course but to begin at once to make arrangements for the removal of herself and her children to Bassano, for which ten days were allowed.

In the meanwhile it transpired, in the visiting circles of Venice, that her real destination was the fortress of Valenciennes, there to endure hopeless imprisonment, if not a worse fate. While she and her friends were doubting the possibility of this intelligence, and waiting with impatience for the arrival of the promised passports, the arrival of a sergeant and three gendarmes changed their suspense into the certainty of evil. She was at this time at her sister's house; but was forced to return under this formidable escort to her own residence, with orders not to quit it. One witness to the grief and consternation which this summons caused was the Marquis de Salvo, a young Sicilian nobleman, who, having been admitted into Count Attems' intimate family circle, had often previously met Mrs. Smith. He was becoming weary of his inactive life in Venice, and, to judge from his narrative, not insensible to the éclat of a successful adventure; so that on witnessing the distress of all present, and contemplating the real danger of Mrs. Smith's situation, he gave his mind earnestly to form a plan for her escape: a thought which had entered his mind on first hearing of the intended outrage of the French government.

In the meanwhile, in order to leave no means untried to change this cruel order, Mrs. Smith requested another interview with M. Lagarde, the only result of which was that she was shown the Prince Eugene's written order in the name of the emperor, specifying that within forty-eight hours she must quit Venice under the escort of gendarmes, and be