The two months that followed were filled up with that thrilling joy in which present pleasure is mingled with and heightened by the expectation of something not exactly sorrowful, nor painful, nor melancholy, but perhaps we should call it sad. Thus Annie Deer enjoyed, to the full, the society of him she loved, though the expectation of his departure, upon his first voyage as captain of a China vessel, sometimes brought a cloud over the bright sky of their happiness. Time, that rapid old postillion, who goes jogging on in the saddle faster and faster every day, without at all minding the six thousand years that have elapsed since first he began to beat the road--Time, we say, whipped his horses into the full gallop, and carried William Stanhope and Annie Deer with wonderful rapidity to the point of parting. Annie Deer cried very bitterly; and, as they were among the first tears she had ever shed in her life, they were, of course, the more painful. William Stanhope would not suffer himself to weep, but he felt little less than she did. They parted, however. He took the command of his vessel; and, shortly afterward, she, within one hour, saw in the newspaper, and read in his own handwriting, that the Honourable Company's ship the Earl Spencer, Captain Stanhope, commander, had cleared out and dropped down the river. It was the month of March, and the weather somewhat boisterous; and Mr. Deer, when he heard the wind whistle and roar down the chimney, thanked God that some man had been struck with the very provident idea of ensuring vessels risking themselves upon that treacherous ocean. Annie Deer's mind ran in the same way, but it went no farther than wishing that there was really some meaning in the name by which Life Assurance Societies designate themselves. But she felt too bitterly, poor girl, that there is no ensuring that fragile thing, human life, especially when trusted to the mercy of the winds and waves. Her daily walk was upon the edge of the little promontory looking over the vast, melancholy sea: and at length, a few days after the ship had dropped down the river, she beheld a gallant vessel coming on with a furious and not very favourable gale; and, watching it with deep interest, saw it take refuge in their little bay, and come to anchor to let pass the storm. About four in the afternoon, the wind lulled, but shifted more to the southwest, so that no ship was likely to get out of the Channel. About half past four, as she was looking out of the drawing-room windows of her father's house, she saw something like a boat tossed up from time to time by the bounding waves, which the tempest had left behind it. In half an hour after, she was pressed in the arms of William Stanhope, and two or three hours more of pure happiness were added to the few which they had known through life. At ten o'clock he took his departure; but, at that hour, the moon, though she was shining was red and dim, announcing that the presence of the