murdered in the beech-tree field: all hurried to the spot, where they found the younger of the two stretched on the ground—a pistol, which had been discharged, in his hand. The cause of his death was soon ascertained—he had been shot directly through the heart: at a little distance they found another pistol, discharged also, and the track of steps through the long grass to the high road, where all trace was lost. In the trunk of a beech, opposite to the deceased, a bullet was found, evidently the one from his pistol. No doubt remained that a duel had been fought; and letters were found on the body, which shewed that the young men were the only sons of two distinguished families in the adjacent county. The one who was to have been married had fallen; of the survivor no tidings were ever heard, and the cause of their quarrel remained, like his fate, in impenetrable obscurity.
Enough of murder, and mystery, which always seems to double the crime it hides, was in this brief and tragic story to lay upon the beautiful but fatal field the memory of blood. The country people always avoided the place; and some chance having deposited the seeds of a crimson polyanthus, which had taken to the
