SOME FICTION.

"One More Unfortunate."





It was midnight-a black, wet, midnight-in a great city by the sea.
The church clocks were booming the hour, in tones half-smothered by
the marching rain, when an officer of the watch saw a female figure
glide past him like a ghost in the gloom, and make directly toward a
wharf. The officer felt that some dreadful tragedy was about to be
enacted, and started in pursuit. Through the sleeping city sped
those two dark figures like shadows athwart a tomb. Out along the
deserted wharf to its farther end fled the mysterious fugitive, the
guardian of the night vainly endeavouring to overtake, and calling
to her to stay. Soon she stood upon the extreme end of the pier, in
the scourging rain which lashed her fragile figure and blinded her
eyes with other tears than those of grief. The night wind tossed her
tresses wildly in air, and beneath her bare feet the writhing
billows struggled blackly upward for their prey. At this fearful
moment the panting officer stumbled and fell! He was badly bruised;
he felt angry and misanthropic. Instead of rising to his feet, he
sat doggedly up and began chafing his abraded shin. The desperate
woman raised her white arms heavenward for the final plunge, and the
voice of the gale seemed like the dread roaring of the waters in her
ears, as down, down, she went--in imagination--to a black death among
the spectral piles. She backed a few paces to secure an impetus,