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-and a very good morning! Then, with a wave of the hand which would have done honor to Oldfield herself, she turned and walked proudly up the lane.

Mr. Bury saw her depart silently, standing in a submissive, dejected attitude, but with a quiet, supercilious smile lightly curling his finely-cut lips; for did he not know that she would return to her haunt the next day, and that he would be there to see?

And Zelma did return the next day, persuading herself that she was only acting naturally, and with proper dignity and independence. She argued with herself that to abandon her favorite walk or avoid her usual resting-place would be to confess, if not a fear of the stranger's presuming and persistent suit, at least, a disturbing consciousness of his proximity, and of the possibility of his braving her displeasure by a second and unpardonable intrusion. No, she would live as she had lived, freely, carelessly; she would go and come, ride and walk, just as though nothing had happened,- for, indeed, nothing had happened that a woman of sense and pride should take cognizance of. So, after a half-hour's strange hesitation, she took her book and went to the old place. Longer than usual she sat there, idly and abstractedly turning over the leaves of her Shakspeare, starting and flushing with every chance sound that broke on the still, sweet air; yet no presumptuous intruder disturbed her maiden meditations, and she rose wearily at last, and walked slowly homeward, saying to herself, "It is well,—I have conquered," but feeling that nothing was well in life, or her own heart, and that she was miserably defeated. Ah, little did she suspect that her clouded, dissatisfied face had been keenly scanned by the very eyes she dreaded, yet secretly longed to meet,- that her most unconscious sigh of disappointment had been heard by her Romeo of the previous day, now lying just behind the hedge, buried in the long brook-side grass, and laughing to himself a very pleasant laugh of gratulation and triumph.

That night, the good Squire of Burleigh Grange relented from his virtuous resolve, and took his wife, daughter, and niece to the play.

The piece was Rowe's tragedy of "Tamerlane." Mr. Bury personated the imperial Tartar, a noble rôle, which so well became him, costumes and all, and brought him so much applause, that Zelma's heart was effectually softened, and she even felt a regretful pride in having received and rejected the homage of a man of such parts.

The next day, as the hour for her stroll arrived, she said to herself, “I can surely take my walks in safety now,—he will never come near me more." So she went,-but, to her unspeakable confusion, she found him quietly seated in her little rustic bower, his head bared to the sunshine, and his "Hyperion curls" tossed and tumbled about by a frolicsome wind.

He rose when the lady appeared, stammered out an apology, bowed respectfully, and would have retired, but that Zelma, feeling that she was the intruder this time, begged him to remain. She thought herself, simple child! merely courteous and duly hospitable, in giving this invitation; but the quick, eager ear of the actor and lover heard, quivering through the assumed indifference and cold politeness of her tones, the genuine impulse and ardent wish of her heart. So he yielded and lingered, proffering apologies and exchanging polite commonplaces.

After a little time, Zelma, to prove her freedom from embarrassment or suspicion, quietly seated herself on the rustic bench, giving, as she did so, a regal spread to her ample skirts, that there might be no vacant place beside her.

The actor stood for a while before her, just going, but never gone, talking gayly, but respectfully, on indifferent topics,-till, at last, touching on some theme of deeper interest, and apparently forgetting everything but it and the fair lady, who neither expressed nor looked a desire to shorten the interview, he flung himself, with what seemed a boy's natu

ral impulse, upon the soft, inviting turf, under the shade of the willow. There, reclining in the attitude of Hamlet at the feet of Ophelia, he rambled on from subject to subject, in a careless, graceful way, plucking up grass and picking daisies to pieces, as he talked, giving every now and then, from beneath the languid sweep of his heavy eyelashes, quick flashes of tender meaning, as fitful and beautiful as the "heat-lightnings" of summer twilights, and apparently as harmless.n

the two friends met by tacit agreement in the lane of Burleigh Grange, and, gradually, Lawrence Bury became less the actor and more the man, in the presence of a genuine woman, without affectation or artifice, stage-rant or art-cant, -one from whose face the glare of the foot-lights had not stricken the natural bloom, whose heart had never burned with the feverish excitement of the stage, its insatiable ambition, its animosities and exceeding fierce jealousies. For Zelma, she grew more humble and simple and less exacting, the more she bestowed from a "bounty boundless as the sea."

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It was but a brief while, scarcely the lifetime of a rose,--the fragrant snow of the hawthorn blossoms had not melted from the hedges since they met, yet, in that little season, the deepest, divinest mystery of human life had grown clear and familiar to their hearts, and was conned as the simplest lesson of Nature.

of

To Zelma the romance and secrecy this love had an inexpressible charm. The Zincala in her nature revelled in its wildness and adventure, in its crime against the respectable conventionalities she despised. She had a keen pleasure in the very management and conceal

There was something so magnetic and contagious in this frank, confiding manner, that Zelma, ere she was aware, grew unrestrained and communicative in turn. One by one, the icicles of pride and reserve, which a strange and ungenial atmosphere had hung around her affluent and spontaneous nature, melted in the unwonted sunshine, dropped away from her, and the quick bloom of a Southern heart revealed itself in smiles and blushes. The divine poet whose volume she now held clasped caressingly in both hands had prepared the way for this, by sending through every vein and fibre of her being the sweet, subtile essence of passionate thought, the spring-tide of youth and love, which makes the story of Romeo and Juliet glow and throb with immortal freshness and vitality.ment to which she was compelled ; — her So, at length, those two talked freely and pleasantly together. They discussed the quiet rural scenery around them, the deep green valley of Arden, shut in by an almost unbroken circle of hills, and Zelma told of a peculiar silvery mist which sometimes floated over it, like the ghost of the lake which, it was said, once filled it; they spoke of wood, stream, moor, and waterfall, sunsets and moonlight and stars, poetry and-love; floating slowly, and almost unconsciously, down the smooth current of summer talk and youthful fancies, toward the ocean of all their thoughts, whose mysterious murmurs already filled one heart at least with a tender awe and a vague longing, which was yet half fear.

imagination, even more than her heart, was engaged in hiding and guarding this charming mystery.

On the day succeeding her first interview with the young actor in the lane, she had tried to beguile her ennui, while lingering in her lonely bower, by curiously peering into the nest of a blackbird, deeply hidden in the long grass at the foot of the hedge, and which she had before discovered by the prophetic murmurs of the mother-bird. She found five eggs in the nest. She took the little blue wonders in her hand, and thought what lives of sinless joy, what raptures and loves, what exultations of song and soaring slept in those tiny shells! Suddenly, there was an alarmed cry and an anxious' flutter of wings in the hedge above her! She turned, and saw the

mother-bird eyeing her askance. From that day the lowly nest with its profaned treasures was forsaken, and the world was the poorer in gladness and melody by five bird-lives of joy and song that might have been.

So, had any luckless intruder chanced to discover Zelma's trysting-place, thrown open to the world the hidden romance in which she took such shy and secret delight, and handled in idle gossip the delicate joys and fragile hopes of young love, it is more than likely that she would have been frightened away from bower and lane, shocked and disenchanted. But the preoccupation of her cousin and her own eccentric and solitary habits prevented suspicion and inquiry, no unfriendly spy, no rude, untoward event, disturbed the quiet and seclusion of this charmed scene of her wooing, where Nature, Romance, and Poetry were in league with Love.

The players played out their engagement at Arden, with the usual supplement, "A few nights only by special request," and were off to a neighboring town. On their last night, after the play, Zelma met her lover by moonlight, at the trysting-place in the lane, for a parting interview.

It was there that the actor, doffing the jaunty hat which usually crowned his "comely head," and, flinging himself on his knees before his fair mistress, entreated her to rule his wayward heart, share

his precarious fortunes, and bear his humble name.

Poor Zelma, when in imagination she had rehearsed her betrothal scene, had made her part something like this :-"And then will I extend my hand with stately grace, and say to my kneeling knight, 'Arise!'-and after, in such brief, gracious words as queens may use, (for is not every woman beloved a queen?) pronounce his happy doom."

But when that scene in her life-drama came on, it was the woman, not the tragedy-queen, that acted. Naturally and tenderly, like any simple girl, she bent over her lover, laid her hand upon his head, and caressingly smoothed back from his brow the straggling curls, damp with night-dew. As she did so, every lock seemed to thrill to her touch, and to wake in her soft, timorous fingers a thousand exquisite nerves that had never stirred before. And then, with broken words and tears, and probing questions and solemn adjurations, she plighted her vows, and sought to bind to her heart forever a faith to which she trusted herself, alas ! too tremblingly.

The melodramatic lover was not content with a simple promise, though wrung from the heart with sobs. "Swear it to me!" he said, in a hoarse stage-whisper; and Zelma, again laying her hand upon his head, and looking starward, swore to be his, to command, to call, to hold,-in life, in death, here, hereafter, evermore.

[To be continued.]

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE,

ATTORNEY AT LAW AND SOLICITOR IN CHANCERY.

SOMEWHAT more than three-quarters of a century ago, George Steevens, the acutest, and, perhaps, the most accomplished, but certainly the most perverse and unreliable of Shakespeare's commen

tators and critics, wrote thus of Shakespeare's life: "All that is known, with any degree of certainty, concerning Shakespeare, is, that he was born at Stratfordupon-Avon; married and had children

there; went to London, where he com-
menced actor, and wrote poems and
plays; returned to Stratford, made his
will, died, and was buried." From 1780,
when this was written, to the present day,
the search after well-authenticated partic-
ulars of Shakespeare's life has been kept
up with a faithfulness equal to that of Sir
Palomides after the beast glatisaunt, and
by as many devotees and with as much
hope of glory as in the quest for the San-
greal. But the fortune of the paynim,
rather than the virgin knight, has fallen
to all the members of the self-devoted
band, and we know little more of the
man Shakespeare than was known by our
great-grandfathers. For, although there
have been issued to us of the present gen-
eration pamphlets professing to give new
particulars of the life of Shakespeare, and
tomes with even more pretentious titles,
from all these there has been small sat-
isfaction, save to those who can persuade
themselves, that, by knowing what Shake-
speare might have done, they know what
he did, or that the reflex of his daily life
is to be found in documents inscribed on
parchment, and beginning, "This inden-
ture made," etc., or "Noverint universi
per presentes." It is with no disrespect
for the enthusiasm of Mr. Knight, and as
little disposition to underrate the labori-
ous researches of Mr. Collier and Mr.
Halliwell, that we thus reiterate the as-
sertion of the world's ignorance of Shake-
speare's life nay, it is with a mingled

*Commenced actor, commenced author, commenced tinker, commenced tailor, commenced candlestick-maker:-Elegant phraseology, though, we venture to think, hardly idiomatic or logical, which came into vogue in England in the early part of the last century, and which, as it is never uttered here by cultivated people, it may be proper to remark, is there used by the best writers. Akin to it is another mode of expression as commonly met with in English books and periodicals, e. g., " immediately he arrived at London he went upon the stage," meaning, as soon as he arrived, etc., or, when he arrived at London, he immediately went upon the stage. As far as our observation extends, Lord Macaulay, alone of all GreatBritons, has neglected to add the latter lucid construction to the graces of his style.

thankfulness and sorrowful sympathy that
we contemplate them wasting the light
of the blessed sun (when it shines in Eng-
land) and wearing out good eyes (or bet-
ter barnacles) in poring over sentences
as musty as the parchments on which
they are written and as dry as the dust
that covers them. But although we glad-
ly concede that these labors have result-
ed in the diffusion of a knowledge of the
times and the circumstances in which
Shakespeare lived, and in the unearthing
of much interesting illustration of his
works from the mould of antiquity, we
cannot accept the documents which have
been so plentifully produced and so piti-
lessly printed, the extracts from parish-
registers and old account-books, — not
Shakespeare's, the inventories, the last
wills and testaments, the leases, the deeds,
the bonds, the declarations, pleas, replica-
tions, rejoinders, surrejoinders, rebutters,
and surrebutters,—as having aught to do
with the life of such a man as William
Shakespeare. We hunger, and we receive
these husks; we open our mouths for
bread, and break our teeth against these
stones. As to the law-pleadings, what
have their discords, in linked harshness
long drawn out, to do with the life of him
whom his friends delighted to call Sweet
Will? We wish that they at least had
been allowed to rest. Those who were
parties to them have been more than two
centuries in their graves,—

"Secure from worldly chances and mishaps.
There lurks no treason, there no envy swells,
There grow no damned grudges; there no
storms,

No noise, but silence and eternal sleep."

Why awaken the slumbering echoes of their living strife?

Yet these very law-papers, in the reduplicated folds of which dead quarrels lie embalmed in hideous and grotesque semblance of their living shapes, their lifeblood dried that lent them all their little dignity, their action and their glow, and exhaling only a faint, sickening odor of the venom that has kept them from crumbling into forgetfulness, these law-pa

pers are now held by some to have special interest Shakespeare-ward, as having to do with a profession for which he made preparatory studies, even if he did not enter upon its practice. Yes, in spite of our alleged ignorance of Shakespeare's life, and especially of the utter darkness which has been thought to rest upon the years which intervened between his marriage in Stratford and his joining the Lord Chamberlain's company of players in London, the question is, now, whether the next historical novel may not begin in this wise:

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that unthrift William is these two days. It was but three nights gone that he went with Will Squele and Dick Burbage, one of the player folk, to take a deer out of Sir Thomas Lucy's park, and, as Will's ill-luck would have it, they were taken, as well as the deer, and there was great ado. But Will- that's my Will- and Dick Burbage, brake from the keepers in Sir Thomas' very hall, and got off; and that's the last that has been heard of them; and here be I left a lone woman with these three children, and― quiet, Hamnet! Would ye pour my supper ale upon the hat of the worshipful Master John a Combe?"

Be

"What! deer-stealing?" exclaimed John a Combe. "Is it thus that he apes the follies of his betters? I had more hope of the lad, for he hath a good heart and a quick engine; and I trusted that ere now he had drawn the lease of my Wilmecote farm to Master Tilney here. But deer-stealing!—like a lord's son, or a knight's at the least. Could not the rifling of a rabbit-warren serve his turn? Deer-stealing! I fear me he will come to nought!"

The speaker remounted, and soon the two horsemen might again have been seen wending their way back through the deepening twilight.

There are several points that would be novel in such a passage. Among others, we would modestly indicate the incident of the two horsemen as evincing some ingenuity, and as likely to charm the reader by its freshness and originality. But one point, we must confess, is not new, and that is the representation of Shakespeare as a lawyer. The supposition, that the author of "Macbeth," "Hamlet," and "King Lear," was a bustling young attorney, is of respectable age, and has years enough upon its head, if not discretion. It has been brought forward afresh by two members of the profession for which is claimed the honor of having Shakespeare's name upon its roll,- William L. Rushton, Esquire, a London Barrister, and John Campbell,

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