Not a word did the ruffians answer, they knew that prayer was useless, and with dark frowning brows, and dauntless bearing, they met their fate, impenitent and fearless. For Marian begged their lives in vain. De Mortemar was pitiless in his just wrath! And the spurs were hacked from the heels of the dead knight, and the base halter twisted round his cold neck, and his dishonored corpse hung up upon the very tree to which he had bade bind the Saxon bridegroom. And the death peals were sung, and the death hymn was chanted; and ere the sounds of either had died away in the forest echoes, the three marauders writhed out their villain souls in the mild air, and swung three grim and ghastly monuments of a foul crime and fearful retribution—and this dread rite consummated the Saxon’s bridal! * * * * * WHY SHOULD I LOVE THEE? BY JOHN S. DU SOLLE. Why should I love thee? Thou so altered! So cold! so passionless! The hand Which erst so much at parting faltered— The cheek which blushed at meeting—and The eyes whose eloquent depths of jet, So much of silence could redeem— They haunt me with their sweetness yet, But, oh! how changed they seem! Why should I love thee, thou false-hearted? Thou smil’st, but smil’st no more for me! The bloom hath not thy lip departed, Thy voice hath still its witchery. But looks and words, though they bewitch me, Can paint no love, where love is not; Thy very kindnesses but teach me How much I am forgot! Why should I love thee? Why repine? Thy lip some other fond lip presses; Thine arm some other’s arms entwine; Thy cheek some other cheek caresses; And though to part with thee be sadness, Oh! God! how difficult to bear, To hope to win thee now were madness! To love thee were despair! * * * * * A BELLE AT A BALL. BY F. W. THOMAS, AUTHOR OF “HOWARD PINCKNEY,” ETC. Miss Merry vale is dressed with taste— With taste she always dresses— A zone is round her virgin waist, And flowers in her tresses; That full-blown fellow, in her curl, Bobs with an everlasting twirl, As, with an air like Juno’s, she Nods to the goodly companie. Prouder it looks than when on high It flouted at a flaming sky; For now, no more on thorny stem, It graces beauty’s diadem. Her neck is bare—her shoulders too, And with the cold they had been blue, But for the flakes of mealy hue— The powder of the pearl— Which, like the frost on frozen shore, Or web of gossamer, was o’er The fascinating girl. Deepest the drift in hollow places. Thus maids forsaken by the graces, And thin with hope deferred— (I only speak from what I’ve heard;