scene of the trial was, in a few minutes viously told me of the man's whereabouts; afterwards, deserted. and this night she took me to him jist now." It was a dark and cheerless night, the wind now gustily moaning and wailing about the prison walls, now sighing away over the house-roofs, and then turning, as if with petulance, to dash the hail and rain more fiercely against the barred window of the condemned cell, where the convict sat on the side of his prison bed, guarded by two gaolers. Despair rested upon his countenance, and reigned in his heart. They had told him there was no hope, and he believed it. "Did he remember you ?" said the sur geon, hastily. More's the pity, he's dying," replied Barney,-" at least I fear so. He was like a man out of his mind intirely. But its not Barney that'ud give up, Misther Keen; and faith I thought it might be well for ye to go and see him. The people in the house said as how the parish docthur had been to him, but I took lave to tell them that I'd fetch a skilful docthur to look at him; an faith ye must go back with me ye plase, and God bless ye, sir!" Some dry clothing was offered to Barney, but he declared that he had no time to change. In less than a minute, the sur Nature was in a despairing attitude: plants and animals seemed alike numbed by the piercing cold. The pitiless storm raged over the heath, and the road, and the crowded town, and seemed to force its unwelcome wretchedness into the most shel-geon was wrapped in a thick great coat and tered homesteads. Even to the very hearth did the storm intrude, and the fire burned dimly as the rattling hail and sleet came hissing down the chimney. It was miserable NOVEMBER weather, and desolation prevailed within as well as without. Like the foam upon the brooks, which were now swelled by the wintry rains into roaring cataracts, Meanwell seemed carried away by the uncontrollable tide of events. Late on the same night, the benevolent surgeon was pacing his room with anxiety. "He will not come to-night," said his wife; "he would have been here before this time if he had succeeded." if muffler, and with Barney turned from the door into the driving sleet and hail. There were no cabs or hackney carriages in the street, and it occupied the pedestrians nearly an hour to walk from the surgeon's house to the lodging-house whither they proposed to go. Barney rapped, and repeated some words of slang, before the person who came would open the door. Barney and the surgeon then passed into the passage, and upstairs to a small room where the invalid lay. An involuntary exclamation of surprise fell from the surgeon's lips, as the light rested on the features of the delirious man, who had just then sunk into comparative repose. "And yet I must be mistaken," murmured Mr. Keen, leaning over the bed"but still the likeness is most extraordi nary!" Taking the hand of the patient to "I cannot rest, my love, if I go to bed; so I will wait up at least till two o'clock," replied Mr. Keen. "He promised faith-feel his pulse, he seemed, however, satisfied fully to come." A long silence ensued. Presently the surgeon stopped in his pacing, and listened, saying he thought he heard footsteps. The sounds grew nearer, but passed the window and went on Another long interval of silent watching; then again the sound of footsteps was heard. A soft rap at the door brought Mr. Keen into the passage, and in another moment Barney, dripping with wet, and blue with cold, was ushered into the apartment. Well, have you succeeded?" said the surgeon and his wife together. "Faith, I met the woman who had pra that he had been mistaken in his first, sus picion, when he observed how the fingers had been unnaturally shortened, by some apparent violence; but the paralyzed face could hardly be mistaken. From the female who sat at his bedside, the surgeon learned that the invalid had come back to his lodging one night about three weeks before, and had complained of se vere pains in the throat and stomach, which he attributed to some wine that had been given to him, and which he declared to have been drugged. She related, moreover, that the parish surgeon had been afterwards called and had expressed an opinion that the m Hadd poisoned with arsenic. The invalid had gradually recovered from the first effects, but had insisted upon drinking some brandy and going out; this had brought on a relapse, and the dangerous illness which had since kept him in bed. In reply to Barney, the woman said that the man had declared repeatedly that he knew that poison had been administered to him, but had refused to give any clue to the person from whom he had received it; it had therefore been suspected that he had taken the poison himself, with the intention of commiting suicide. The speaker added, that she believed he had wished to go out to see some of the parties who were interested in the trial of the murderer who had been sentenced that very day, but said she did not know why, though she had tried to make out, from his wandering conversation during his delirium, what he knew of the matter. There was an impression in the house that the parish doctor had neglected the patient, and Mr. Keen was therefore readily permitted to take the case under his care as he desired. As soon as the door of the house had closed, and he was again in the street, the surgeon expressed his suspicions as to who the patient might turn out to be, and how invaluable his evidence probably might have been, if produced at the trial. As it was, he feared the case was hopeless, and even if the man's consciousness could be restored or his life preserved, it would be too late. The last hope to which the surgeon had clung, and to which Barney's first fruits of honest energy had been directed, was now laid prostrate; and a gloom, as of a dark winter's day, came down upon their spirit. The cloud went with them, and each memher of Mr. Keen's family on the following day was, as it were, overshadowed by the dreadful hopelessness with which the father prepared himself for the final shock-the execution of his friend. familiarize the depraved with scenes of violence and blood. The dismal intelligence, in a hundred different forms, was thrust upon everybody everywhere. Among other houses to which the news came was that of Frederick Turner. Laying down the newspaper, which he had been reading, he said with a sigh,—“So they have found Henry Meanwell guilty!" The words went direct to Frank's brain with a crushing jar, as when a ship strikes on a rock at sea. There was no shriek, or cry, or groan. Upon his face-from which the traces of previous sufferings and illness were scarcely banished-horror and agony were plainly written. He staggered from his seat, and, breathless, speechless, and helpless, fell like a dead weight to the floor. "Francis! Francis! Francis!" screamed the quaker's gentle wife. There was no answer. Medical aid was immediately sent for and obtained; but it was several hours before the boy was sufficiently restored to explain. He then told his benefactor that his name was not Frank Francis, as he had told them it was, but Frank Meanwell; and that the person who had been found guilty of the murder of Frederick Parker was his father. One less educated in the language of physiognomical expression than Frank would have perceived the pain and displeasure which this explanation caused to the quaker and wife. They were displeased that Frank should have concealed his real name, and grieved that he should have had so little confidence in them as to suppose that they would have loved him less because his father had been accused of crime. Frank saw at a glance what was passing in their minds, and acknowledged his error; pointed out how the circumstance of his being his father's son had already caused him the loss of one happy home, and how he had feared that it might lessen the love Jv "I know how wrong I was, now," continued Frank," and I am ashamed of my deception, and of my want of confidence in you." On the day after the trial, the news-which they had shown him if he had repapers proclaimed, far and wide, that vealed his secret. Henry Meanwell, by an intelligent jury of his e equals, had been found guilty of the wilful murder of Frederick Parker. Hideons representations, with gaudy colouring, purporting to be sketches of the victim, and the murderer engaged in the dreadful act, permitted to be sold in the streets, to foster the taste for revolting sights, and to were The tears streamed down the boy's cheeks, while he implored forgiveness, He did not, he said, ask them to let him live with them any longer, he was unworthy of their kindness: but he could never go away without their forgiveness. He would go to his father, and would die with him. Harder hearts than those which looked upon Frank's grief and agony would have been touched thereby. The quakeress affectionately caressed and comforted the boy, while her husband administered such manly consolation as he could. It was agreed that Frank should visit his father on the following day, and that in the mean time Frederick Turner should make inquiries and learn immediately the real circumstances of the trial, and whether there was any hope. He returned in two hours; his answer required not to be spoken; on his brow was expressed "no hope." The face of the sun was hidden, and a thick curtain of dim clouds shrouded the sky. In the woods, where the leafless trees looked like grim skeletons, the gusty winds moaned and sighed among the dripping boughs. Where broad green meadows lately spread, cold floods extended. All was bleak, desolate, wintry, and lone! GRANDFATHER WHITEHEAD'S LECTURES TO LITTLE-FOLK. THE SEASONS. MY DEAR YOUNG FRIENDS-Once more we are approaching the conclusion of the year, and at such a season it will not be inappropriate to glance at the physical changes through which we have passed. We can scarcely remember many of them, and now when the frost is binding the ground, and silvering the leafless tree, it is not without an effort that we can picture to ourselves the delicate freshness of spring, the greener maturity of summer, or the more recent glories of autumn. *. The winter has come round again, and I now propose to redeem the promise which I made to you in my concluding lecture last year, viz., to explain why the climate of the country in which the Esquimaux (the in * Vol. i. p. 302. An habitants of the arctic regions) live, is so exceedingly cold, that snow and ice continually cover the ground. In doing so, I shall direct your attention to the causes of those alternations of temperature and light in our own climate which we call seasons, changes that are familiar to all, but the beauties and wonders of whose operations are comprehended by comparatively few, though they are well worthy of the greatest attention, for the amusement and instruc tion which the study of them will afford. I cannot promise you, my dear children, to do more than point out fields of knowledge where rich harvests stand ready to be gathered-with the sincere hope that you may be induced to go out, and with the sickle of diligence to reap for yourselves, and lay up the invaluable store in the memory-which, like the barn of the husbandman, should be well filled with precious things. It makes me very happy indeed to know that I have been enabled to encou rage some of you in the acquirement of knowledge, and that the lectures which I have given with so much pleasure, have induced you to think that in this beautiful world which we inhabit, there are on every side wonderful sights; which, while they stimulate the gratitude of every good heart, delight and astonish the intellect. I need hardly tell you, my dear children, what every nurse ought to know, and to be able to tell her little charges, namely, that the earth is a globe, which, with many others, revolves or rolls through space around the sun, which is another great globe surrounded by a fiery air or atmosphere. The earth upon which we live is eight thousand miles in diameter; that is to say, if you could make a railway tunnel right through the earth from London to New Zealand, you would have to travel that enormous distance before you came out at the opposite end to that at which you started. And if you could establish a railway, and travelled upon it day and night at the rate of twenty miles an hour, without stopping, you would not have completed the journey through in twelve days! But I will take another illustration, which may give you some conception of the magnitude of our planet, and the insignificance in size of yourselves and its inhabitants. Could a ball or globe be constructed twice as high as St. Paul's Cathedral, to represent the earth, and it was required to place upon it an object bearing the same proportion to it in magnitude which man does to the earth, the size of the object would be so small, that upwards of nineteen millions of such could stand on a square inch! So little is man in comparison with the globe he inhabits; and yet this globe is but very small compared with the sun, or many of those companion worlds that circulate around our great centre of light. Of these things, however, I hope to have the opportunity of talking to you hereafter. the end from the marks above alluded to; then the knot will represent the south pole Fig. 1. Although all seems so fixed and still in the heavens and earth, the globe which we inhabit is whirling onwards round the sun at the rate of nineteen miles in a second. The highest ordinary speed attained by a railway train is thirty-five miles an hour-b, the thread in the body of the orange the twice that speed would be seventy miles an imaginary axis of the globe, and the point hour, and would be considered dangerous; at which the thread comes out the north but the earth is rolling through space at pole a. Having placed a candle near the nearly seventy thousand miles an hour. Nor centre of the table, to represent the sun, is this all its motion. If a person could set the orange twirling on the string, and be lifted above the earth and its atmo-walk round the table, always keeping the sphere, and could occupy a fixed position, orange towards the light. You have then from which he could observe the motions an imperfect representation of the motion of the planet on which we live, he would of the earth on its own axis, and its movenot only observe the motion to which I ment round the sun. Now place a white have called your attention, but he would wafer on the orange at the point in the find the globe turning round, like an apple centre, and observe the different degrees of suspended from a twisted string, and the light which it derives as the orange turns surface of the earth would be exposed to on its axis, and the changes which correhis eye at the rate of a thousand miles an spond to our day and night. hour! This rotation, or turning round of the world upon its own centre, is the cause of day and night, while the journey which the earth performs round the sun produces the changes of temperature and light which we call the seasons Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. The earth is not perfectly round like a shot, or cannon ball, but is flattened on two opposite sides like an orange. From these flattened sides, if the earth had had an axis, or pivot, on which it turned, the ends of such pivot would protrude; and hence these points of the earth are denominated north and south poles, from the Greek Word signifying a pivot, or axletree. The stalk-mark on an orange, and its blossommark, correspond to these localities on the earth's surface. To understand this and other matters, let us take an orange (which makes an excellent representation of the earth), and pass a thread with a knot on To give you an idea of the mode in which the phenomena of the seasons are produced, and why those periods bear certain characteristics, I must explain that the course described by the earth is not exactly a circle, and that the axis of the earth is not upright, with reference to the sun, like the axis of the orange in our illustration. In describing the previous illustration, I purposely directed that the candle should not be in the centre of the table, because the sun does not occupy what would be called the centre of the course of the earth. I have here a sketch of the earth's orbit, which is not circular, but elliptical, or of the shape called an ellipse. The sun is represented at S, and the earth at various points of its annual circuit; a shows the position of the earth in winter; 6 that at the spring equinox (equal night and day); e represents the position of our globe in summer; and d at the autumnal equinox, the lines across the poles are intended to show the regions of perpetual snow near the two poles. When the earth is at a, the whole of this division near the North Pole (NP) is in shade, the nights being several months in duration in the arctic regions, while during the same period it is summer at the south pole (s r), where the sun does not pass below the horizon for a similar period. At b and at d there is equal day and night; while at c the South Pole is entirely in shade, while the earth turns completely round, and the North Pole is as entirely in light. This is the summer of the northern hemisphere, or half-sphere, in which is England. It seems odd that our summer should occur at that time of the year when the earth is farthest from the sun, and that we should have winter when our globe is nearest; but you will soon understand this if you observe that when the North Pole is towards the sun, as at c, the rays of the sun shine upon us almost perpendicularly, and that the days being long, the earth has time to get warmed by them; while at a, on the contrary, the North Pole is turned away from the sun, and consequently the rays of heat fall upon us in the northern hemisphere obliquely; the days also are short and the nights long, Fig. 3. George stand upon a chair, and hold his orange by its thread so as to make it ha about a yard directly above the edge of the table nearest the light. George's orang will thus represent the position of the eart in the winter of the northern hemisphere and as it turns, will show you how very little of the candle-light the pin's he obtains. Hence you will understand the days in winter are so short and the nights so long. On the opposite side of the light, let Kate hold the thread of her orange so that the fruit shall hang only about an inch above the edge of the table, and you will then see that though herorange is farthest from the candle, yet that the northern part of it is in possession of the full and direct rays, and that the pin's head has only a very little shade to pass through as the orange turns round. Kate's orange represents the position of the earth in England's summer. If Sarah-Anne and little Joe take their positions on either side be tween Kate and George, and hold their oranges over the edge of the table, level they will re so that the surface of the northern hemi- with the flame of the sphere has little time to get warm. I will now instruct you how to form a good illustration of the seasons, from which you may obtain a clear comprehension of the varying positions of the earth, as regards the sun and the results. and Spring. Owing to the fact that we spectively be repressions of Autumn are so much nearer the sun in winter than in summer, his orb appears larger at noon in January than in June. which Let us now review the year through wher "Place a candle a little on one side of the we have passed, and note the changes centre of a round table, and having passed have been produced by our passage a thread through another orange, let Kate sixty-eight thousand miles round the st take the one, and George the other. Into In January we experienced cold, which |