the magistrate relapsed into silence. Let him do what pleases him best, thought Huyp, he can't hang me, and so all I can do is to wait the result.

Vander Dordrecht really did feel the yearnings of nature for his dissipated son. But he knew that he could not conscientiously punish his companions, and suffer him to escape, and therefore was considering the most lenient method of requiting them for their misconduct. Mynheer well knew the world; and was not without some trifling terror of Aaltje's recrimination, in case she should think proper to defend her son. It was a knotty point, and he at length resolved not to make the affair public, but to make the delinquents do penance in a subterraneous cell, which, in ancient times, had been made use of as a prison, by the inhabitants of Dordrecht tower.

Thither he accordingly did them the honor personally to conduct them, and

after informing them that they must for some time consider it their home, he turned the key and left them to their reflections. Huyp now began seriously to consider the awkwardness of his situation, and plentifully loaded his companions with execrations. He had discovered that what he considered to be an excellent joke, proved to be rather unpleasant in its consequences, and was fairly puzzled in what manner he should proceed to regain his liberty. His instigators were likewise not backward in their reproaches. They accused him of deviating from his promise of saving them, inasmuch as he had not said a single word to sooth the anger of his father, but had calmly submitted to be imprisoned without even attempting to plead for the slightest mitigation of the sentence pronounced upon them. It did not, however, appear likely that they would be speedily liberated, and

their complaints, at length, died away, like the distant echo of the wind, and sunk into a profound silence. Their mental reflections were by no means pleasant, and sleep was, perhaps, to them more welcome than the anxious expectation of a speedy release.

CHAPTER II.

At doore expecting him his mother sate,
Wondering her boy would stay from her so late;
Framing for him unto herselfe excuses:

And with such thoughts gladly herselfe abuses,
As that her sonne, since day grew old and weake,
Staid with the maides to runne at barlibreake:
Or that he cours'd a parke with females fraught,
Which would not runne except they might be caught,
Or in the thickets lay'd some wily snare

To take the rabbet or the pourblind hare,

Or taught his dogge to catch the climbing kid;
Thus shepherds doe; and thus she thought he did.

Browne's Britannia's Pastorals.

AALTJE's patience was now nearly exhausted. Huyp had never before staid out so late; and she was not without an anxious foreboding of misfortune. Midnight spread her sable shadows around, and still no intelligence reached her of her son. The morning dawned, and yet

Huyp's well-known footstep met not her She now began to feel the most serious alarm, and, after many fruitless enquiries after the fate of her son, she resolved to hasten to the villa Dordrecht, to implore the assistance of his father, and the police, to discover his fate..

She

Vander Dordrecht had not risen from his pillow, when Aaltje arrived. burst at once into his room, and, in a voice rendered almost inarticulate by sorrow, entreated him not to delay a moment his enquiries for the fate of his son. Beauty in distress has ever been dangerous to the male sex. Vander Dordrecht was now placed in a most delicate situation, and he strove by every kind endearment, to convince Aaltje that he was not insensible either to her tears or her charms. He assured her, that Huyp should be forthcoming in a short time; and softened into something like sympathy; all his former affection

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