“Asleep or awake I hear it fall, And it’s grown to a pleasant noise; It seems like a loving angel’s call— And I must obey the voice!” Thus spoke the child—And the Sabbath calm Brought the loud organ’s sorrowful sound, And the great bell tolled its solemn psalm As they laid her in the ground! * * * * * MARGARET’S WELL: A TALE OF THE GREAT CIVIL WAR. BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF “THE ROMAN TRAITOR,” “MARMADUKE WYVIL,” ETC. Ay me! For aught that I did ever hear, Did ever read in tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. It was toward the close of a lovely summer’s day, in the eventful year of 1643, that a young cavalier might have been seen riding at a slow pace, and in a somewhat sad and thoughtful mood, through a green and winding lane in the pleasant county of Warwick, not far distant from the pastoral banks of famous Avon. But though the young man’s brow was now overcast and clouded, though his fine gray eye was fixed abstractedly on the mane of his charger, and though a heavy shadow, such as is believed by the superstitious to arise from the prescience of coming fate, gloomed over all his features, it was evident that such an expression was alien to the face, such a mood unusual to the character of the man. He was as handsome a youth as you might see in a twelvemonth, even in that land, so justly famed for the manly beauty of its sons; tall and well-made, and giving promise of uncommon strength and vigor, when mature manhood should have swelled and hardened his slender form and yet unfurnished muscles. His face was frank and open, with a fair broad forehead, a well-opened, laughing, deep gray eye, and a mouth, the dimpled angles of which could not be divested of their natural tendency to smile, even by the heavy despondency which seemed now to weigh upon his spirit, and alter his whole countenance, even as a sunny landscape is altered by the intervention of a storm-cloud, blotting out all the laughing rays, which gave it mirth and radiance.