thought was how to prevent their reaching the King’s hands without awakening the suspicions of their bearer. Summoning to her councils an old servitor of the family, it was decided to partially sever the straps by which the saddle-bags containing the dreaded missives were attached, so that the attendant, when guiding their bearer across the ford, might detach and sink them in the Goyt, when they would be lost for ever. On the early morrow the gay young soldier, having taken leave of his lady-love, hastened upon his mission; the old retainer, who was nothing loth to speed the parting guest, accompanying him towards the river, but, giving a somewhat free interpretation to his instructions, concluded that if it was desirable to get rid of the letters it might be equally desirable to get rid of their bearer, and so, instead of conducting him to the ford, he led him to the deepest part of the river, which had become swollen with the storm of the previous night. The young cavalier plunged into the stream, and in an instant both horse and rider were swept away by the surging flood. Miss Bradshaw witnessed the act of treachery from the window of her chamber, but was powerless to prevent the catastrophe. She saw the fatal plunge, gave one long piercing shriek, and fell senseless to the ground. Reason had for ever left her. Such is the legend that has floated down through successive generations, and still obtains credence with many of the neighbouring villagers, who, with a fondness for the supernatural, delight to tell how the shade of the hapless maid of Marple is sometimes seen lingering at nightfall about the broad staircases and corridors of what was once her home, or, as the pale cold moon sheds her silvery radiance on wood and sward, wandering along the grassy margin of the river and by the deep dark pool where her lover lost his life. Mr. Leigh has made the incidents of this tradition the basis of one of the most pathetic of his recently-published Cheshire ballads. Another writer on Marple has, however, given a different version. He says the lady was Miss Esther Bradshaw, and that her lover was “Colonel Sydenham, the Royalist commander,” whom she ultimately married. It is a pity to spoil so pretty a story, but strict regard for prosaic fact compels us to avow our disbelief in it, and that for a twofold reason—(1) that Colonel Sydenham was not a “Royalist,” but had been an active officer during the war on the Parliament side; and (2) that Colonel Bradshaw never had a daughter Esther. The story so circumstantially related rests, we believe, on no better foundation than the once popular though now almost forgotten romance of “The Cavalier,” written under the _nom de plume_ of Lee Gibbons, by Mr. Bennett, of Chapel-en-le-Frith, some sixty years ago.