part of Col. Effingham it was unsought, and on that of Marmaduke there was a cautious reserve. It soon became necessary for the latter to abandon the capital of Philadelphia; but he had taken the precaution to remove to the interior the whole or his effects, beyond the reach of the royal forces, including the papers of his friend also. There he continued serving his country during the struggle, in various civil capacities, and always with dignity and usefulness. While, however, he discharged his functions with credit and fidelity, Marmaduke never seemed to lose sight of his own interests; for, when the estates of the adherents of the crown fell under the hammer, by the acts of confiscation, he appeared in New-York, and became the purchaser of extensive possessions at, comparatively, very low prices.

It is true that Marmaduke, by thus purchasing estates that had been wrested by violence from others, rendered himself obnoxious to the censures of that sect, which, at the same time that it discards its children from a full participation in the family union, seems ever unwilling to abandon them entirely to the world. But either his success, or the frequency of the transgression in others, soon wiped off this slight stain from hist character: and although there were a few, who, dissatisfied with their.own fortunes, or conscious of their own demerits, would make dark hints concerning the sudden prosperity of the unportioned quaker, yet his services, and possibly his wealth, soon drove the recollection of these vague conjectures from men's minds.

When the war was ended, and the independence of the states acknowledged, Mr. Temple turned his attention from the pursuit of commerce, which was then fluctuating and uncertain, to the

settlement of those tracts of land which he had purchased. Aided by a good deal of money, and directed by the suggestions of a strong and practical reason, his enterprises throve to a degree, that the climate and rugged face of the country which he selected would seem to forbid. His property increased in a tenfold ratio, and he was already to be ranked among the most wealthy and important of his countrymen. To inherit this wealth he had but one child-the daughter whom we have introduced to the reader, and whom he was now conveying from school, to preside over a household that had too long wanted a mistress.

When the district in which his estates lay, had become sufficiently populous to be set off as a county, Mr. Temple had, according to the custom of the new settlements, been selected to fill its highest judicial station. This might make a Templar smile, but in addition to the apology of necessity, there is ever a dignity in talents and experience, that is commonly sufficient, in any station, for the protection of its possessor; and Marmaduke, more fortunate in his native clearness of mind than the judge of King Charles, not only decided right, but was generally able to give a very good reason for it. At all events, such was the universal practice of the country and the times; and Judge Temple, so far from ranking among the lowest of his judicial contemporaries in the courts of the new counties, felt himself, and was unanimously acknowledged to be, among the first.

We shall here close this brief explanation of the history and character of some of our personages, leaving them in future to speak and act for themselves.

CHAPTER III

All that thou see'st, is nature's handy-work,
Those rocks that upward throw their mossy brows,
Like castled pinnacles of the elder times!
These venerable stems, that slowly rock
Their tow'ring branches in the wintry gale!
That field of frost, which glitters in the sun,
Mocking the whiteness of a marble breast!—
Yet man can mar such works with his rude taste,
Like some sad spoiler of a virgin's fame.

Duo.

SOME little while elapsed, after the horses had resumed their journey, ere Marmaduke Temple was sufficiently recovered from his agitation to scan the person of his new companion. He now observed, that he was a youth of some two or three and twenty years of age; and rather above the middle height. Further observation was prevented by the rough overcoat which was belted close to his form by a worsted sash, much like the one worn by the old hunter. The eyes of the Judge, after resting a moment on the figure of the stranger, were raised to a scrutiny of his countenance. There had been a contraction of the brows, and a look of care, visible in the features of the youth, when he first entered the sleigh, that had not only attracted the notice of Elizabeth, but which she had been much puzzled to interpret.

The passion seemed the strongest when he was enjoining his old companion to secrecy; and when he had decided, and was, rather passively, suffering himself to be conveyed to the village, the expression of the young man's eyes by no means indicated any great degree of self-satisfaction at the step. But the lines of an uncommonly prepossessing countenance were gradually becoming composed; and he now sat in silent, and apparently abstracted musing. The Judge gazed at him for some time with earnestness, and then smiling as if at his own forgetfulness, he spoke—

"I believe, my young friend, that terror has driven your name from my recollection-your face is very familiar to me, and yet for the honour of a score of buck's-tails in my cap, I could not tell your name."

"I came into the country but three weeks since, sir,” returned the youth coldly, “and I understand you have been absent more than that time."

"It will be five to-morrow. Yet your face is one that I have seen; though it would not be strange, such has been my affright, should I see thee in thy winding-sheet walking by my bedside, to-night. What say'st thou, Bess? Am I compos mentis or not?-Fit to charge a grand jury, or, what is just now of more pressing necessity, able to do the honours of a Christmas-eve in the hall of Templeton ?"

"More able to do either, my dear father,” said a playful voice from under the ample enclosures of the hood, "than to kill deer with a smoothbore." A short pause followed; and the same voice, but in a different accent, continued-" We shall have good reasons for our thanksgiving toLight, on more accounts than one."

A slightly scornful smile passed over the features of the youth, at the archness of the first part of this speech; but it instantly vanished, as he listened to the tremulous tones in which it was concluded. The Judge, also, seemed to be affected with the consciousness of how narrowly he had escaped taking the life of a fellow-creature, and, for some time, there was a dead silence in the sleigh.

The horses soon reached a point, where they seemed to know by instinct that their journey was nearly ended, and, bearing on the bits, as they tossed their heads, uneasily, up and down, they rapidly drew the sleigh over the level land, which lay on the top of the mountain, and soon came to the point where the road descended suddenly, but circuitously, into the valley.

The Judge was roused from his reflections, when he saw the four columns of dense smoke, which floated along the air from his own chimneys. As house, village, and valley burst on his sight, he exclaimed cheerfully to his daughter—

"See, Bess, there is thy resting-place for life! And thine too, young man, if thou wilt consent to dwell with us."

The eyes of the youth and maiden involuntarily met, as the Julge, in the warmth of his feelings, thus included them in an association which was to endure so long; and if the deepening colour, that, notwithstanding her hood, might be seen gathering over the face even to the forehead of Elizabeth, was contradicted in its language by the proud expression of her eye, the scornful but covert smile that again played about the lips of the stranger, seemed equally to deny the probability of his consenting to form one of this family group. The scene was one, however,