said he, “I guess we’re considerable unlucky—but I consider to turn in, if agreeable!” The man had a way, in fact, half free-and-easy, half awkward, that struck me; especially when he said, as he went below, he supposed “this was a war-brig,” and hoped there “wasn’t war between the States and the old country?” “No, my man,” said the captain, “you may set your mind at ease on that point—but I’m afraid, nevertheless, we’ll have to land you at St Helena!” “What, mister?” said the American, starting, “that’s where you’ve got Boneyparty locked up? Well now, if you give me a good berth for a few, mister, I guess I’ll rayther ship aboard you, till I get a better! What’s your wage just now, if I may ask, captain?” “Well, well,” said the captain, laughing, “we’ll see to-morrow, my man!”—and the American went below. “Set stu’nsails again, Mr Aldridge,” continued Captain Wallis, “and square yards. Why, rather than have such a fellow in the ship’s company, Aldridge, I’d land him without Sir Hudson’s leave!” “For my own part, next day, I should have given more notice to our new shipmates while the brig steered fair before the wind—the blacks and the mate leaning about her forecastle, and the other two being expected by the surgeon to come pretty well round before night, though the captain had gone to see them below; but a thing turned up all at once that threw me once more full into the thought of Violet Hyde, till I was perfectly beside myself with the helpless case I was in. The note Tom Westwood had shown me was still in the pocket of my griffin’s coat, though I hadn’t observed it till now; and what did I feel at finding out, that, instead of one from her to Westwood, it was a few words from my own sister, little Jane, saying in a pretty, bashful sort of a way, that her brother Ned must come home before she could engage to anything! You may fancy how I cursed myself for being so blind; but a fellow never thinks his own sister charming at all—and what else could I have done at any rate? All I hoped for was to get aboard of some Indiaman at St Helena, and there was nothing else I wearied to see the island again for. I may say I walked the brig’s lee quarterdeck till daybreak; but anyhow the look-out from the foreyard had scarce sung out “St Helena on the weather-bow!” when I was up, making out the round blue cloud in the midst of the horizon, with a white streak across it, like a bird afloat in the hazy blue, with the clear gleam from eastward off our starboard quarter running round to it.” CANADIAN LOYALTY. AN ODE. [Written at Sunrise on New Year’s Morning of 1850, at the head of Lake Ontario, in Western Canada.]