She embraced her father, and bade him good night, and curtseying to aunt Dorothy, for her heart was too sore to speak to her, she sought the silence and solitude of her own chamber.

Oh, what luxury it was to be alone—to know that no prying eyes looked upon her grief; no harsh voice, with unfeeling common-place, tore open the deep wounds of her aching heart, and made them bleed afresh!

"Oh, that I could think him innocent!" she said. "Yet I cannot wholly consider him guilty. He looked—oh, how sad and touching was that look! It spoke of sorrow, but it revealed no trait of remorse; but then, would Mary, by her strange conduct, have condemned a man whom she knew to be innocent? Alas! it must be so, and 'tis a crime to love him."

She sank upon her knees, and buried her face in the coverlid of the bed, but no prayer rose to her lips—an utter prostration of soul was there, but the shrine of her God was dark and voiceless; the waves of human passion had flowed over it, and marred the purity of the accustomed offering. Hour after hour still found her on her knees, yet she could not form a single petition to the Divine Father. As Southey has beautifully expressed the same feelings in the finest of all his poems:

"An agony of tears was all her soul could offer."

Midnight came; the moon had climbed high in the heavens. The family had retired for the night, and deep silence reigned through the house, when Juliet rose from her knees, and approaching the open casement, looked long and sadly into the serene, tranquil depths of the cloudless night.

Who ever gazed upon the face of the divine mother in vain? The spirit of peace brooded over the slumbering world—that holy calm which no passion of man can disturb—which falls with the same profound stillness round the turmoil of the battle-field, and the bed of death—which enfolds in its silent embrace the eternity of the past—the wide ocean of the present. How many streaming eyes had been raised to that cloudless moon!—how many hands had been lifted up in heart-felt prayer to those solemn star-gemmed heavens! What tales of bitter grief had been poured out to the majesty of night! The eyes were quenched in the darkness of the grave; the hands were dust; and the impassioned hearts that once breathed those plaintive notes of woe, where, oh where were they? The spirit that listened to the sorrows of their day had no revelation to make of their fate!

"And I, what am I, that I should repine and murmur against the decrees of Providence?" sighed Juliet. "The sorrows that I now endure have been felt by thousands who now feel no more. God, give me patience under every trial. In humble faith teach me resignation to Thy divine will."

With a sorrowful tranquillity of mind she turned from the window, struck a light, and prepared to undress, when her attention was arrested by a letter lying upon her dressing table. She instantly recognised the hand, and hastily breaking the seal, read with no small emotion the following lines

Say, dost thou think that I could be False to myself and false to thee? This broken heart and fever'd brain May never wake to joy again. Yet conscious innocence has given A hope that triumphs o'er despair; I trust my righteous cause to heaven, And brace my tortured soul to bear The worst that can on earth befall, In losing thee—my life, my all!

The dove of promise to my ark, The pole-star to my wandering bark, The beautiful by love enshrined, And worshipp'd with such fond excess; Whose being with my being twined In one bright dream of happiness, Not death itself can rend apart The link that binds thee to my heart.

Spurn not the crush'd and wither'd flower; There yet shall dawn a brighter hour, When ev'ry tear you shed o'er this Shall be repaid with tenfold bliss; And hope's bright arch shall span the cloud That wraps us in its envious shroud. Then banish from thy breast for ever The cold, ungenerous thought of ill, Falsehood awhile our hearts may sever, But injured worth must triumph still.

Juliet did not for a moment doubt that Anthony Hurdlestone was the author of these lines, and involuntarily she pressed the paper to her lips. Realities are stern things, but Juliet could not now believe him guilty: and with all the romance of her nature, she was willing to hope against hope; and she retired to bed, comforted for her past sufferings, and as much in love with Anthony as ever.

While Juliet enjoyed a profound and tranquil sleep, her unfortunate lover was a prey to the most agonising doubts and fears. "Surely, surely, she cannot think me guilty," thought the devoted Anthony, as he tossed from side to side upon his restless bed. "She is too generous to condemn me without further evidence. Yet, why do I cling to a forlorn hope? Stronger minds than hers would believe appearances which speak so loudly against me. But why should I bear this brand of infamy? I will go to her in the morning and expose the real criminal."

This idea, entertained for a moment, was quickly abandoned. What, if he did expose his cousin's guilt, might not Godfrey deny the facts, and Mary, in order to shield her unprincipled lover, bear him out in his denial; and then his ingratitude to the father would be more conspicuously displayed in thus denouncing his son. No: for Algernon's sake he would bear the deep wrong, and leave to Heaven the vindication of his honor. He had made an appeal to her feelings; and youth, ever sanguine, fondly hoped that it had not been made in vain.

Another plan suggested itself to his disturbed mind. He would inform Godfrey of the miserable situation in which he was placed, and trust to his generosity to exonerate him from the false charge, which Mary, in her waywardness or madness, had fixed upon him. Judging his cousin's mind by his own, he felt that he was secure—that, however painful to Godfrey's self-love, he would never suffer him to bear the reproach of a crime committed by himself.

Confident of success, he rose by the dawn of day, and sought his cousin's apartment. After rapping several times at the door, his summons was answered by Godfrey in a grumbling tone, between sleeping and waking.

"I must see you, Godfrey," cried Anthony, impatiently shaking the door. "My errand brooks no delay."

"What the deuce do you want at this early hour?" said Godfrey with a heavy yawn. "Now do be quiet, Tony, and give a man time to pull his eyes open."

Again the door was violently shaken. Godfrey had fallen back into a deep sleep, and Anthony, in his eagerness to gain an audience, made noise enough to have roused the Seven Sleepers from their memorable nap. With a desperate effort Godfrey at length sprang from his bed, and unlocked the door, but, as the morning was chilly, he as quickly retreated to his warm nest, and buried his head in the blankets.

"Godfrey, do rouse yourself, and attend to me; I have something of great consequence to communicate, the recital of which cannot fail to grieve you, if you retain the least affection for me."

"Could you not wait until after breakfast?" and Godfrey forced himself into a sitting posture. "I was out late last night, and drank too much wine. I feel confoundedly stupid, and the uproar that you have been making for the last hour at the door has given me an awful headache. But what is the matter with you, Tony? You look like a spectre. Are you ill? or have you, like me, been too long over your cups?"

"You know I never drink, Godfrey, nor have I any bodily ailment; but in truth my mind is ill at ease. I am sick at heart, and you, you, cousin, are the cause of my present sufferings."

"Ah! the old love story. You repent of giving up Juliet, and want me to release you from your promise. I am not such a romantic fool! I never give up an advantage once gained, and am as miserly of opportunities as your father is of his cash. But speak out Anthony," he continued, seeing his cousin turn pale, "I should like to hear what dreadful charge you have to bring against me."

"You shall hear, Godfrey, if I have strength and courage to tell you." Anthony sat down on an easy chair by the side of the bed, and after a long pause, in which he tried to compose his agitated feelings, he informed his cousin of the conversation that he had overheard between Mary and her brother, and what had subsequently happened. Godfrey listened with intense interest until he came to that part of the narrative where Mary, in her wandering mood, had confounded him with Anthony; and there, at the very circumstance which had occasioned his cousin such acute anguish, and when he expected from him the deepest sympathy, how were his feelings shocked as, throwing himself back upon his pillow, Godfrey burst into a loud fit of laughter, exclaiming in a jocular and triumphant tone, "By Jove, Anthony, but you are an unlucky dog!"

This was too much for the excited state of mind under which Anthony had been laboring for some hours, and with a stifled groan he fell across the bed in a fit. Godfrey alarmed in his turn, checked his indecent mirth, and dressing himself as quickly as he could, roused up his valet to run for the surgeon. The fresh air and the loss of a little blood soon restored the unfortunate young man to his senses and to a deep consciousness of his cousin's ungentlemanly and base conduct.

Instead of being sorry for this unfortunate mistake, Godfrey secretly congratulated himself upon his singular good fortune, and laughed at the strange accident that had miraculously transferred the shame of his own guilt to his cousin.

"This will destroy for ever what little influence he possessed with Juliet, and will close the Captain's doors against him. If I do not improve my present advantage, may I die a poor dependent upon the bounty of a Hurdlestone!"

Again he laughed, and strode onward to the Lodge, humming a gay tune, and talking and whistling alternately to his dog.

He found Miss Dorothy and her niece at work; the latter as pale as marble, the tears still lingering in the long dark lashes that veiled her sad and downcast eyes. The Captain was rocking to and fro in an easy chair, smoking his pipe and glancing first towards his daughter, and then at her starch prim-looking aunt, with no very complaisant expression.

"By Jove, Dorothy! if you continue to torment that poor child with your eternal sermons, you will compel me to send you from the house."

"A very fitting return for all my services," whimpered Miss Dorothy; "for all the love and care I have bestowed upon you and your ungrateful daughter! Send me from the house—turn me out of doors! Me, at my time of life;" using that for argument's sake which, if addressed to her by another, would have been refuted with indignation; "to send me forth into the world, homeless and friendless, to seek my living among strangers! Brother, brother, have you the heart to address this to me?"

"Well, perhaps I was wrong, Dolly," replied the kind-hearted sailor, repenting of his sudden burst of passion; "but you do so provoke me by your ill-humor, your eternal contradiction, and your old-maidish ways, that it is impossible for a man always to keep his temper. It's a hard thing for a fellow's wife to have the command of the ship, but it seems deucedly unnatural for him to be ruled by a sister."

"Is it not enough, brother, to make a virtuous woman angry, when she hears the girl, whose morals she has fostered with such care, defending a wicked profligate wretch like Anthony Hurdlestone?"

"Excuse me, aunt, I did not defend his conduct, supposing him guilty," said Juliet, with quiet dignity; "for if that be really the case such conduct is indefensible. I only hoped that we had been mistaken."

"Pshaw, girl! You are too credulous," said her father. "I have no doubt of his guilt. But here is Mr. Godfrey; we may learn the truth from him."

With an air of the deepest concern, Godfrey listened to the Captain's indignant recital of the scene he had witnessed in the park, and with his uncle Mark's duplicity (only Godfrey was a laughing villain, always the most dangerous sinner of the two) he affected to commiserate the folly and weakness of his cousin, in suffering himself to be entangled by an artful girl.

"He is a strange lad, a very strange lad, Captain Whitmore. I have known him from a child, but I don't know what to make of him. His father is a bad man, and it would be strange if he did not inherit some of his propensities."

"Weaknesses of this nature were not among his father's faults," said the Captain. "I must confess that I liked the young man, and he had, I am told, a very amiable and beautiful mother."

"I have heard my father say so—but she was his first love, and love is always blind. I should think very little of the moral worth of a woman who would jilt such a man as my father, to marry a selfish miserly wretch like Mark Hurdlestone for his money."

"You are right, Mr. Hurdlestone," said Juliet. "Such a woman was unworthy of your father. Poor Anthony, he has been very unfortunate in his parents; yet I hoped of him better things."

"You think, Mr. Godfrey, that there is no doubt of his guilt?" asked Miss Dorothy.

"The girl must know best," returned Godfrey, evading, whilst at the same moment he confirmed the question. "He always admired her from a boy. We have had many disputes, nay downright quarrels, about her beauty. She was never a great favorite of mine. I admire gentle, not man-like women."

"He is a scoundrel!" cried the Captain, throwing down his pipe with a sound that made his daughter start. "He shall never darken my doors again, and so you may tell him, Mr. Godfrey, from me!"

"This is a severe sentence, but he deserves it!" said Godfrey. "I fear my father will one day repent that he ever fostered this viper in his bosom. Yet, strange to say, he always preferred him to me. Report says that there is a stronger tie between them, but this is a base slander upon the generous nature of my father. He loved Anthony's mother better than he did mine; and he loves her son better than he does me."

"Poor lad," said the Captain, warmly grasping his hand, "You have been unkindly treated among them; and you shall always find a friend and a father in me."

Godfrey was a little ashamed of his duplicity, and would gladly, if possible, have recalled that disgraceful scene; but having so far committed himself, he no longer regarded the consequences; but he determined to bear it out with the most hardened effrontery.

Whilst the victim of his diabolical art was writhing upon a sick bed under the most acute mental and bodily pain, the author of his suffering was enjoying the most flattering demonstrations of regard, which were lavishly bestowed upon him by the inhabitants of the Lodge. But the vengeance of Heaven never sleeps, and though the stratagems of wicked men may for a time prove successful, the end generally proves the truth of the apostle's awful denunciation: "The wages of sin is death."



CHAPTER XII.

Art thou a father? did the generous tide Of warm parental love e'er fill thy veins, And bid thee feel an interest in thy kind? Did the pulsation of that icy heart Quicken and vibrate to some gentle name, Breathed in secret at its sacred shrine?—S.M.

Short was the time allowed to Anthony Hurdlestone to brood over his wrongs. His uncle's affairs had reached a crisis, and ruin stared him in the face. Algernon Hurdlestone had ever been the most imprudent of men; and under the fallacious hope of redeeming his fortune, he had, unknown to his son and nephew, during his frequent trips to London, irretrievably involved himself by gambling to a large extent. This false step completed what his reckless profusion had already begun. He found himself always on the losing side, but the indulgence of this fatal propensity had become a passion, the excitement necessary to his existence. The management of his estates had always been entrusted entirely to a steward, who, as his master's fortunes declined, was rapidly rising in wealth and consequence. Algernon never troubled himself to enquire into the real state of his finances, whilst Johnstone continued to furnish him with money to gratify all the whims and wants of the passing moment.

The embarrassed state of the property was unknown to his young relatives, who deemed his treasures, like those of the celebrated Abulcasem, inexhaustible. Godfrey, it is true, had latterly received some hints from Johnstone how matters stood, but his mind was so wholly occupied with his pursuit of Juliet Whitmore, and the unpleasant predicament in which he was placed by his unfortunate connexion with Mary Mathews, that he had banished the disagreeable subject from his thoughts.

The storm which had been long gathering at length burst. Algernon was arrested, his property seized by the sheriff, himself removed to the jail of the county town of ——. Thither Anthony followed him, anxious to alleviate by his presence the deep dejection into which his Uncle had fallen, and to offer that heartfelt sympathy so precious to the wounded pride of the sufferer.

The gay and joyous disposition of Algernon Hurdlestone yielded to the pressure of misfortune. His mind bowed to the heavy stroke, and he gave himself up to misery. His numerous creditors assailed him on all sides with their harassing importunities; and in his dire distress he applied to his rich brother, and, humbly for him, entreated a temporary loan of two thousand pounds until his affairs could be adjusted, and the property sold. This application, as might have been expected, was insultingly rejected on the part of the miser.

Rendered desperate by his situation, Algernon made a second attempt, and pleaded the expense he had been at in bringing up and educating his son, and demanded a moderate remuneration for the same. To this ill-judged application, Mark Hurdlestone returned for answer, "That he had not forced his son upon his protection; that Algernon had pleased himself in adopting the boy; that he had warned him of the consequences when he took that extraordinary step; and that he must now abide by the result; that he, Algernon, had wasted his substance, like the prodigal of old, in riotous living, but that he, Mark, knew better the value of money, and how to take care of it."

"Your father, Tony, is a mean pitiful scoundrel!" cried the heart-broken Algernon, crushing the unfeeling letter in his hand, and flinging it with violence from him. "But I deserved to be treated with contempt, when I could so far forget myself as to make an application to him! Thirty years ago, I should have deemed begging my bread from door to door an act of less degradation. But, Tony, time changes us all. Misfortune makes the proudest neck bow beneath the yoke. My spirit is subdued, Tony, my heart crushed, my pride gone. I am not what I was, my dear boy. It is too late to recall the past. But I can see too late the errors of my conduct. I have acted cruelly and selfishly to poor Godfrey, and squandered in folly the property his mother brought me, and which should have made him rich. And you, my dear Anthony, this blow will deprive you of a father, aye, and of one that loved you too. I would rather share a kennel with my dogs, than become an inmate of the home which now awaits you."

"Home!" sighed the youth. "The wide world is my home, the suffering children of humanity my lawful kinsmen."

Seeing his uncle's lip quiver, he took his hand and affectionately pressed it between his own, while the tears he could not repress fell freely from his eyes. "Father of my heart! would that in this hour of your adversity I could repay to you all your past kindness. But cheer up, something may yet be done. My legitimate father has never seen me as a man. I will go to him. I will plead with him on your behalf, until nature asserts her rights, and the streams of hidden affection, so long pent up in his iron heart, overflow and burst asunder these bars of adamant. Uncle, I will go to him this very day, and may God grant me success!"

"It is in vain, Anthony. Avarice owns no heart, has no natural affections. You may go, but it is only to mortify your pride, agonize your feelings, and harden your kind nature against the whole world, without producing any ultimate benefit to me."

"It is a trial, uncle, but I will not spare myself. Duty demands the attempt, and successful or unsuccessful, it shall be made."

He strode towards the door. Algernon called him back. "Do not stay long, Tony. I feel ill and low spirited. Godfrey surely does not know that I am in this accursed place. Perhaps he is ashamed to visit me here. Poor lad, poor lad! I have ruined his prospects in life by my extravagance, but I never thought that it would come to this. If you see him on your way, Anthony, tell him (here his voice faltered), tell him, that his poor old father pines to see him, that his absence is worse than imprisonment—than death itself. I have many faults, but I love him only too well."

This was more than Anthony could bear, and he sprang out of the room.

With a heart overflowing with generous emotions, and deeply sympathising in his uncle's misfortunes, he mounted a horse which he had borrowed of a friend in the neighborhood, and took the road that led to his father's mansion; that father who had abandoned him, while yet a tender boy, to the care of another, and whom he had never met since the memorable hour in which they parted.

Oak Hall was situated about thirty miles from Norgood Park, and it was near sunset when Anthony caught the first glimpse of the picturesque church of Ashton among the trees. With mingled feelings of pride, shame, and bitterness he rode past the venerable mansion of his ancestors, and alighted at the door of the sordid hovel that its miserable possessor had chosen for a home.

The cottage in many places had fallen into decay, and admitted through countless crevices the wind and rain. A broken chair, a three-legged stool, and the shattered remains of an oak table, deficient of one of its supporters, but propped up with bricks, comprised the whole furniture of the wretched apartment.

The door was a-jar that led into an interior room that served for a dormitory. Two old soiled mattresses, in which the straw had not been changed for years, thrown carelessly upon the floor, were the sole garniture of this execrable chamber. Anthony glanced around with feelings of an uncontrollable disgust, and all his boyish antipathy to the place returned. The lapse of nearly twenty years had not improved the aspect of his old prison-house, and he was now more capable of appreciating its revolting features. The harsh words, and still harsher blows and curses, which he had been wont to receive from the miser and his sordid associate, Grenard Pike, came up in his heart, and, in spite of his better nature, steeled that heart against his ungracious parent.

The entrance of Mark Hurdlestone, whose high stern features, once seen, could never be forgotten, roused Anthony from his train of gloomy recollections, and called back his thoughts to the unpleasant business that brought him there.

Mark did not at the first glance recognise his son in the tall elegantly-dressed young man before him; and he growled out, "Who are you, sir, and what do you want?"

"Mr. Hurdlestone," said Anthony respectfully, "I am your son."

The old man sat down in the chair. A dark cloud came over his brow, as if he already suspected the nature of his son's mission, and he knitted his straight bushy eyebrows so closely together that his small fiery dark eyes gleamed like sparks from beneath the gloomy shade.

"My son; yes, yes. I've heard say that 'tis a wise son that knows his own father. It must be a very wise father who could instinctively know his own son. Certainly, I should never have recognised mine in the gay magpie before me. But sit down, young sir, and tell me what brought you here. Money, I suppose; money, the everlasting want that the extravagant sons of pleasure strive to extort from the provident, who lay up during the harvest of life a provision for the winter of age. If such be your errand, young man, your time is wasted here. Anthony Hurdlestone, I have nothing to give."

"Not even affection it would appear, to an only son."

"I owe you none."

"In what manner have I forfeited my natural claim upon your heart?"

"By transferring the duty and affection which you owed to me to another. Go to him who has pampered your appetites, clothed you with soft raiment, and brought you up daintily to lead the idle life of a gentleman. I disown all relationship with a useless butterfly."

Anthony's cheek reddened with indignation. "It was not upon my own account I sought you, sir. From my infancy I have been a neglected and forsaken child, for whom you never showed the least parental regard. Hard blows and harder words were the only marks of fatherly regard that Anthony Hurdlestone ever received at your hands. To hear you curse me, when, starving with cold and hunger, I have asked you for a morsel of bread—to hear you wish me dead, and to see you watch me with hungry eager eyes, as if in my wasted meagre countenance you wished to find a prophetic answer—were sights and sounds of every-day occurrence. Could such conduct as this beget love in your wretched child? Yet, God knows!" exclaimed the young man, clasping his hands forcibly together, while tears started to his eyes—"God knows how earnestly I have prayed to love you, to forget and forgive these unnatural injuries, which have cast the shadow of care over the bright morning of youth, and made the world and all that it contains a wilderness of woe to my blighted heart."

The old man regarded him with a sullen scowl; but whatever were his feelings (and that he did feel the whole truth of the young man's passionate appeal, the restless motion of his foot and hand sufficiently indicated) he returned no answer; and Anthony emboldened by despair, and finding a relief in giving utterance to the long pent-up feelings which for years had corroded his breast, continued,

"I rightly concluded that I should be considered by you, Mr. Hurdlestone, an unwelcome visitor. Hateful to the sight of the injurer is the person of the injured, and I stand before you a living reproach, an awful witness both here and hereafter at the throne of God of what you ought to have been, and what you have neglected to be—a father to your motherless child. But let that pass. I am in the hands of One who is the protector of the innocent, and in His righteous hands I leave my cause. Your brother, sir, who has been a father to me, is in prison. His heart, sorely pressed by his painful situation, droops to the grave. I came to see if you, out of your abundance, are willing to save him, Father, let your old grudge be forgotten. Let the child of your poor lost Elinor be the means of reconciling you to each other. Cease to remember him as a rival: behold him only in the light of a brother—of that twin brother who shared your cradle—of a friend whom you have deeply injured—a generous fellow-creature fallen, whom you have the power to raise up and restore. Let not the kind protector of your son end his days in a jail, when a small sum, which never could be missed from your immense wealth, would enable him to end his days in peace."

"A small sum!" responded the miser, with a bitter laugh. "Let me hear what you, consider a small sum. Your uncle has the impudence to demand of me the sum of two thousand pounds, which is his idea of a small sum, which he considers a trifling remuneration for bringing up and educating my son from the age of seven years to twenty. Anthony Hurdlestone, go back to your employer, and tell him that I never expended that sum in sixty years."

"You do not mean to dismiss me, sir, with this cruel and insulting message?"

"From me, young man, you will obtain no other."

"Is it possible that a creature, made in God's image, can possess such a hard heart? Alas! sir, I have considered your avarice in the light of a dire disease; as such I have pitied and excused it. The delusion is over. You are but too sane, and I feel ashamed of my father!"

The old man started and clenched his fist, his teeth grated together, he glared upon his son with his fiery eyes, but remained obstinately silent.

Regardless of his anger, the young man continued—"It is a hard thing for a son to be compelled to plead with his father in a cause like this. Is there no world beyond the grave? Does no fear of the future compel you to act justly? or are your thoughts so wholly engrossed with the dust on which you have placed all your earthly affections, that you will not, for the love of God, bestow a small portion of that wealth which you want the heart to enjoy, to save a brother from destruction? Oh! listen to me, father—listen to me, that I may love and bless you." He flung himself passionately at the old man's feet. "Give now, that you may possess treasures hereafter, that you may meet a reconciled brother and wife in the realms of bliss!"

"Fool!" exclaimed the miser, spurning him from his feet. "In heaven they are neither married nor are given in marriage. Your mother and I will never meet, and God forbid we should!"

Anthony shuddered. He felt that such a meeting was impossible; and he started from the degrading posture he had assumed, and stood before the old man with a brow as stern and a glance as fierce as his own.

"And now, Anthony Hurdlestone, let me speak a few words to you, and mark them well. Is it for a boy like you to prescribe rules for his father's conduct? Away from my presence! I will not be insulted in my own house by a beardless boy, and assailed by such impertinent importunities. Reflect, young man, on your present undutiful conduct, and, if ever you provoke me by a repetition of it, I will strike your name out of my will, and leave my property to strangers more deserving of it. I hear that you have been studying for the Church, under the idea that I will provide for you in that profession; I could do it. I would have done it, and made good a promise I once gave you to that effect. But this meeting has determined me to pursue another plan, and leave you to provide for yourself."

"You are welcome so to do, Mr. Hurdlestone," said Anthony, proudly; "the education which I have received at your brother's expense will place me above want. Farewell! and may God judge between us!"

With a heavy heart, Anthony returned to ——. He saw a crowd collected round the jail, and forcing his way to the entrance, was met by Godfrey; his face was deadly pale, and his lips quivered as he addressed his cousin.

"You are too late, Anthony—'tis all over. My poor father—."

He turned away, for his heart, at that time, was not wholly dead to the feelings common to our nature. He could not conclude the sentence. Anthony instantly comprehended his meaning, and rushed past him into the room which had been appropriated to his uncle's use.

And there, stretched upon that mean bed, never to rise up, or whistle to hawk or hound, lay the generous, reckless Algernon Hurdlestone. His face wore a placid smile; his grey hair hung in solemn masses round his open, candid brow; and he looked as if he had bidden the cares and sorrows of time a long good-night, and had fallen into a deep, tranquil sleep.

A tall man stood beside the bed, gazing sadly and earnestly upon the face of the deceased. Anthony did not heed him—the arrow was in his heart. The sight of his dead uncle—his best, his dearest, his only friend—had blinded him to all else upon earth. With a cry of deep and heart-uttered sorrow, he flung himself upon the breast of the dead, and wept with all the passionate, uncontrollable anguish which a final separation from the beloved wrings from a devoted woman's heart.

"Poor lad! how dearly he loved him!" remarked a voice near him, addressing the person who had occupied the room when Anthony first entered. It was Mr. Grant, the rector of the parish, who spoke.

"I hope this sudden bereavement will serve him as a warning to amend his own evil ways," returned his companion, who happened to be no other than Captain Whitmore, as he left the apartment.

The voice roused Anthony from his trance of grief, and stung by the unmerited reproach, which he felt was misplaced, even if deserved, in an hour like that, he raised his dark eyes, flashing through the tears that blinded them, to demand of the Captain an explanation. But the self-elected monitor was gone; and the unhappy youth again bowed his head, and wept upon the bosom of the dead.

"Anthony, be comforted," said the kind clergyman, taking his young friend's hand. "Your poor uncle has been taken in mercy from the evil to come. You know his frank, generous nature—you know his extravagant habits and self-indulgence. How could such a man struggle with the sorrows and cares of poverty, or encounter the cold glances of those whom he was wont to entertain? Think, think a moment, and restrain this passionate grief. Would it be wise, or kind, or Christian-like, to wish him back?"

Anthony remembered his interview with his father—the wreck of the last hope to which his uncle had clung; and he felt that Mr. Grant was right.

"All is for the best. My loss is his gain—but such a loss—such a dreadful loss!—I know not how to bear it with becoming fortitude!"

"I will not attempt to insult your grief by offering common-place condolence. These are but words, of course. Nature says, weep—weep freely, my dear young friend; but do not regret his departure."

"How did he die?—dear kind uncle! Was he at all prepared for such a sudden unexpected event?"

"The agitating occurrences of the last week had induced a tendency of blood to the head, which ended in apoplexy. From the moment of seizure he was insensible to all outward objects; he did not even recognise his son, in whose arms he breathed his last. Of his mental state, it is impossible for us to determine. He had faults, but they were more the result of unhappy circumstances than of any peculiar tendency to evil in his nature. He was kind, benevolent, and merciful: a good neighbor, and a warm and faithful friend. Let us hope that he has found forgiveness through the merits of his Redeemer, and is at rest."

Anthony kissed his uncle's cold cheek, and said, "God bless him!" with great fervor.

"And now, my young friend, tell me candidly, in what way you have offended Captain Whitmore—a man both wealthy and powerful, and who has proved himself such a disinterested friend to your uncle and cousin; and who might, if he pleased, be of infinite service, to you? Can you explain to me the meaning of his parting words?"

"Not here—not here," said Anthony, greatly agitated. "By the dead body of the father, how can a creature so long dependent upon his bounty denounce his only son? Captain Whitmore labors under a strong delusion—he has believed a lie; and poor and friendless as I am, I am too proud to convince him of his error."

"You are wrong, Anthony. No one should suffer an undeserved stigma to rest upon his character. But I will say no more upon a painful subject. What are you going to do with yourself? Where will you find a home to-night?"

"Here with the dead. Whilst he remains upon earth I have no other home. I know Mr. Winthrop the jailer—he is a kind benevolent man; he will not deny me an asylum for a few days."

"My house is close at hand; remain with me until the funeral is over."

"There will be no delay, I hope. They will not attempt to seize the body."

"Captain Whitmore has generously provided for that. He paid the creditor on whose suit your uncle was detained, this morning; but the Colonel was too ill to be moved."

"That was noble—generous. God bless him for that! And Godfrey—what is to become of him?"

"The Captain has insisted on his living at the Lodge until his affairs are settled. Your cousin bore the death of his father with uncommon fortitude. It must have been a terrible shock!"

"That is a sad misapplication of the word. A want of natural affection and sensibility, the world calls fortitude. Godfrey had too little respect for his father while living, to mourn very deeply for his death."

"Alas! my young friend; what he is, in a great measure, his father made him. I have known Godfrey from the petted selfish child to the self-willed, extravagant, dissipated young man; and though I augur very little good from what I do know of his character, much that is prominently evil might have been restrained by proper management, and the amiable qualities which now lie dormant been cherished and cultivated until they became virtues. The loss of fortune, if it leads him to apply the talents which he does possess to useful purposes, may, in the end, prove a great gain."

Anthony shook his head. "Godfrey will never work."

"Then, my dear sir, he must starve."

"He will do neither."

And the conversation between the friends terminated.



CHAPTER XIII.

The world has done its worst, you need not heed Its praise or censure now.—Your name is held In deep abhorrence by the good: the bad Make it a sad example for fresh guilt.—S.M.

We will leave Anthony Hurdlestone to weep and watch beside the newly dead, and conduct our readers into the cottage occupied by Farmer Mathews and his family.

Returning the night before from market, very much the worse from liquor, the farmer had fallen from his horse, and received a very severe concussion of the brain. William, surprised at his long absence, left the house at daybreak in search of his father, and found him lying, apparently dead, within sight of his own door.

With Mary's assistance, he carried him into the house. Medical aid was called in, and all had been done that man could do to alleviate the sufferings of the injured farmer, but with little effect. The man had received a mortal blow, and the doctor, when he left that evening, had pronounced the fatal sentence that his case was hopeless; that, in all probability, he would expire before the morning.

As the night drew on, the elder Mathews became quite unconscious of surrounding objects, and but for the quick hard breathing, you would have imagined him already dead.

The door of the cottage was open, to admit the fresh air; and in the door way, revealed by the solitary candle which burnt upon the little table by the bed-side, stood the tall athletic figure of William Mathews. His sister was sitting in a low chair by the bed's head, her eyes fixed with a vacant stare upon the heavy features of the dying man.

"William," she said, in a quick deep voice, "where are you? Do come and watch with me. I do not like to be alone."

"You are not alone," returned the ruffian sullenly; "I am here; and some one else is here whom you cannot see."

"Whom do you mean?"

"The devil, to be sure," responded her brother. "He is always near us; but never more near than in the hour of death and the day of judgment."

"Good Lord, deliver us!" said the girl, repeating unconsciously aloud part of the liturgy of the Church to which nominally she belonged.

"All in good time," responded the human fiend. "Has father shown any sign of returning sense since the morning?"

"No, he has remained just in the same state. William, will he die?"

"You may be sure of that, Mary. Living men never look as he does now."

"It is a terrible sight," said his sister. "I always did hope that I should die before father; but since I got into this trouble I have wished that he might never live to know it. That was sin, William. See how my wicked thoughts have become prophecy. Yet I am so glad that he never found out my crime, that it makes the tears dry in my eyes to see him thus."

"You make too much fuss about your condition, girl! What is done cannot be undone. All you can now do is to turn it to the best possible account."

"What do you mean, William?"

"Make money by it."

"Alas," said the girl, "what was given away freely cannot be redeemed with gold. Had I the wealth of the whole world, I would gladly give it to regain my lost peace of mind. Oh, for one night of calm fresh sleep, such as I used to enjoy after a hard day's work in the field. What would I not give for such a night's rest? Rest! I never rest now. I work and toil all day; I go to bed—heart-weary and head-weary—but sleep never comes as it used to come. After long hours of tossing from side to side, just about the dawn of day, a heavy stupor comes over me, full of frightful sights and sounds, so frightful that I start and awake, and pray not to sleep again."

"And what has made such a change—that one act?" said the ruffian. "Pshaw! girl. God will never damn your soul for the like of that. It was foolish and imprudent; but I don't call that sin."

"Then what is sin?" said the girl solemnly.

"Why, murder, and theft, and—"

"And what?"

"Hang me! if I wish to go deeper into the matter. But if that is sin, which you make such a to-do about, then the whole world are sinners."

"Do you think that you are not a sinner, William?"

"I never thought a word about it," said the man. "I am not a whit worse than others; but I am poorer, and that makes my faults more conspicuous. There is Godfrey Hurdlestone, every whit as bad as I am, yet were we to be tried by the same jury, the men that would hang me would acquit him. But his day is over," he continued, talking to himself. "He is now as poor as me; and if the rich heiress does not marry him, will be much worse off."

"Marry!" cried Mary, springing from her seat, and grasping her brother's arm. "Who talks of Godfrey Hurdlestone marrying?"

"I talk of it—every one talks of it—he boasts of it himself. I was told last night by Captain Whitmore's serving-man, that his master had given his consent to the match, and that the young lady was coming round, and that Mr. Godfrey was every day at the house. Perhaps the Colonel being cooped up in jail may spoil the young man's wooing."

"In jail! Colonel Hurdlestone in jail! Can that be true?"

"Fact."

"And Mr. Godfrey? What will become of Mr. Godfrey?"

"He will become one of us, and have to take care of himself. And if he does marry Miss Whitmore, he will have enough to take care of you."

"Do you think that I would share his affections with another woman?" cried the girl, her pale cheeks flushing to crimson. "Brother, I am not sunk so low as that—not quite so low."

"You are sunk quite low enough for anything, Mary. You may be as bad as you like now, the world will think no worse of you than it does at present. You have made a bad bargain, and you must stand by it. If you cannot be the man's wife, you must rest content with being his mistress; married or single you will always be Godfrey Hurdlestone's better half. Miss Whitmore is not to compare to you, in spite of her pretty waxen face, and she is not the woman to please such a wild fellow as him. He will grow tired of her before the honeymoon is over, and you will have it all your own way."

"Juliet Whitmore shall never be his wife, nor any other woman, while I live. But, William, if he is as poor as you say he is, what use will it be to you my continuing to live with him in sin? He cannot give me money if he has none for himself."

"Hush," said the ruffian, drawing nearer, and glancing quickly round, to be certain that they were alone. "Did you never hear of the rich miser, Mark Hurdlestone?"

"Mr. Anthony's father?"

"The same. And do you not know that, were Anthony out of the way, removed by death or any other cause, Godfrey Hurdlestone would be his heir?"

"Well, what of that? Anthony is alive and well, and may outlive us all."

"Strong men often die very suddenly. There is an ill-luck hangs about this same Mr. Anthony. I prophesy that his life will be a short one. Hark! Was that a groan? Father is coming to himself."

He took the candle and went up to the bed. The sick man still breathed, but remained in the same stupor as before. "This cannot last long," said his son, stooping over the corpse-like figure. "Father was a strong man for his age, but 'tis all up with him now. I wish he could speak to us, and tell us where he is going; but I'm thinking that we shall never hear the sound of his voice again. The bell will toll for him before sunrise to-morrow."

He had scarcely finished speaking when the slow, deep boom of the death-bell awoke the sluggish stillness of the heavy night. The brother and sister started, and Mary gave a loud scream.

"Who's dead?" said Mathews, stepping to the open door "some of the quality, or that bell would not speak out at this late hour of night. Ha! Mr. Godfrey Hurdlestone. Is that you?"

"What's wrong here?" cried Godfrey, glancing rapidly round the cottage. "Mathews, have you heard the news? My poor father's dead."

"Dead!" exclaimed both his companions in a breath. "Colonel Hurdlestone dead! When did he die?"

"This evening, at sunset. 'Tis a bad piece of business, Mathews. He died insolvent, and I am left without a penny."

"Alas, what will become of us all!" shrieked Mary, flinging herself frantically upon the bed. "William, he has ceased to breathe. Our father too is dead!"

The grief of the lower orders is generally loud and violent. Unaccustomed to restrain their feelings, Nature lifts up her voice, and tells, in tones which cannot be misunderstood, the blow which has left her desolate. And so Mary Mathews poured forth the anguish of her soul over the parent that, but a few days before, she had wished dead, to conceal from him her guilt. Yet now that he was gone—that the strong tie was broken, and her conscience reproached her for having cherished for a moment the unnatural thought—she wept as if her heart had never known a deeper sorrow. Her brother and lover strove in vain to comfort her. She neither saw nor heeded them, but in a stern voice bade them depart and leave her alone.

"The wilful creature! Let her have her own way, Mr. Godfrey. Grief like that, like the down-pouring of a thunder-shower, soon storms itself to rest. She will be better soon. Leave her to take care of the dead, while you and I step into the kitchen and consult together about the living."

Godfrey, who had suffered much that day from mental excitement, felt doubly depressed by the scene he had just witnessed, and gladly obeyed.

Mathews lighted a fresh candle, and led the way into the kitchen. The fire that had been used to prepare the evening meal was nearly out; Mathews raked the ashes together and threw a fresh billet into the grate; then reaching from a small cupboard a bottle and a glass, he drew a small table between them, and stretching his legs towards the cheering blaze he handed a glass of brandy to his companion.

"Hang it, man! don't look so down in the mouth. This is the best friend in time of need. This is my way of driving out the blue devils that pinch and freeze my heart."

Godfrey eagerly seized the proffered glass and drained it at a draught.

"Well, that's what I call hearty!" continued the ruffian, following his example. "There's nothing like that for killing care. I don't wonder at your being low. I feel queer myself—devilish queer. It is a strange thing to lose a father. A something is gone—a string is loosened from the heart, which we feel can never be tied again. I wonder whether the souls gone from among us to-night are lost or saved—or if there be a heaven or hell?"

"Pshaw!" said Godfrey, lighting his pipe, "do you believe such idle fables?"

"Why, do you see, Master Godfrey, I would fain think them false for my own sake—mere old women's tales. But terrible thoughts will come into my mind; and though I seldom think of heaven, I often hear a voice from the shut up depths of my heart—a voice that I cannot stifle. Do not smile," said the man gloomily, "I am in no mood to be laughed at. Bad as I am, confound me if you are not ten times worse."

"If you are so afraid of going to hell," said Godfrey, sarcastically, "why do you not amend your life? I, for my part, am troubled with no such qualms of conscience."

"If you had seen blood as often upon your hand as I have upon mine, you would tell a different story. Kill a man, and then see if what we hear of ghosts and spirits are mere fables. I tell thee, Godfrey Hurdlestone, they never die, but live and walk abroad, and haunt you continually. The voice they speak with will be heard. In solitary places—in the midst of crowds—at fairs and merry-makings—in the noon of day, and at the dead of night, I have heard their mocking tones." He leaned his elbows upon his knees, and supported his chin between the palms of his hands, and continued to stare upon Godfrey with vacant bloodshot eyes.

"Don't take me for a ghost," said Godfrey, the same sarcastic smile passing over his handsome face. "What does it matter to us where our fathers are gone? If there is a place of future rewards or punishments, depend upon it we shall only have to answer for our own sins; and as you and I have, at present, but a small chance of getting to heaven, we may as well make the most of our time on earth."

"Confound that death-bell," said the smuggler, "it has a living voice to-night. I never hear it but it reminds me of Newgate, and I fancy that I shall hear it toll for my own death before I die."

"A very probable consummation, though certainly not a very pleasant one," said Godfrey ironically. "But away with such melancholy presages. Take another sup of the brandy, Mathews, and tell me what you are going to do for a living. The lease of your farm expires in a few days. Mr. —— has taken possession of the estates, and means, Johnstone tells me, to put in another tenant. What will become of you and Mary in the meanwhile?"

"I have not thought about it yet. At any rate, I can always live by the old trade, and fall upon my feet. At all events, we must leave this place. It is little that father has saved. The neighbors think him rich, but a drunkard never dies rich; and you know, Mr. Godfrey, that the weight of a pig is never known until after it is dead. There will not be much more than will bury him. There are the crops in the ground, to be sure, and the cattle, and a few sticks of furniture; but debts of honor must be paid, and I have been very unlucky of late. By the by, Master Godfrey, what does your cousin mean to do with himself?"

"He must go home to his miserly dad, I suppose."

"Humph! I think that I will go to Ashton and settle in that neighborhood myself; I like to be near old friends."

"What can induce you, Mathews, to go there?"

"I have my reasons. Strong reasons too, in which I am sure you will heartily concur." He looked into his companion's eyes, with an expression so peculiar, that Godfrey started as if some new light had suddenly flashed upon his soul, while Mathews continued in a lower voice, "Suppose, now that we could get up a regular quarrel between old Ironsides and his son; who would then be the miser's heir?"

Godfrey took the hand of the smuggler and pressed it hard.

"Can you form no better scheme than that?"

"I understand you, Mr. Godfrey. You are a perfect genius in wickedness. The devil never found a fitter agent for doing his business on a grand scale. Yes, yes, I understand you."

"Would it be possible?"

"All things are possible to those who have the courage to perform. If I could remove this obstacle out of your way, what would be my reward?"

"A thousand pounds!"

"Your conscience! Do you think that I would risk my neck for such a paltry bribe?"

"You have done it often for the hundredth part."

"That's neither here nor there. If I have played the fool a dozen times, that's no reason that I am to do so again. Go shares, and promise to make an honest woman of Mary, and you shall not be long out of possession."

"The sacrifice is too great," said Godfrey, musing. "Let us say no more about it at present."

"You will think about it?"

"Thoughts are free."

"Not exactly. Evil thoughts lead to evil deeds, as surely as fruit follows flowers upon the tree. Try to lay that babe of the brain to rest, and see if it will not waken to plague you yet."

"It was one of your own begetting—you should know best how to quiet the imp."

"Leave me alone for that. The day is breaking; we must part. We have both melancholy duties to perform."

"I wish the funeral was over," said Godfrey, "I hate being forced to act a conspicuous part in so grave a farce."

"Your cousin will help you out. He is the real mourner; you, the actor. Remember what I hinted to you, and let me know your opinion in a few days."

"The risk is too great," said Godfrey, shrugging his shoulders. "When I am reduced to my last shift, it will be time enough to talk of that."

The grey misty dawn was just struggling into day, when Godfrey left the cottage. Mathews looked after him, as, opening a side gate that led to a foot-path that intersected the park, he vanished from his sight.

"Well, there goes the greatest scoundrel that ever was unhung," he muttered to himself. "He has never shed blood, nor done what I have done, but hang me if I would exchange characters with him, bad as I may be. He thinks to make a fool of me; but if I do not make him repay a thousand fold the injuries he has heaped on me and mine, may we swing on the same gallows."

In no very enviable mood, Godfrey pursued his way though the lonely park. The birds had not yet sung their matin hymn to awaken the earth. Deep silence rested upon the august face of nature. Not a breath of air stirred the branches, heavy with dew-drops. The hour was full of beauty and mystery. An awe fell insensibly upon the heart, as if it saw the eye of God visibly watching over the sleeping world. Its holy influence was felt even by the selfish heartless Godfrey.

The deep silence—the strange stillness—the uncertain light—the scenes he had lately witnessed—his altered fortunes—his degrading pursuits—the fallen and depraved state of his mind, crowded into his thoughts, and filled his bosom with keen remorse and painful regrets.

"Oh, that I could repent!" he cried, stopping, and clasping his hands together, and fixing his eyes mournfully upon the earth,—"that I could believe that there was a God—a heaven—a hell! Yet if there be no hereafter, why this stifling sense of guilt—this ever-haunting miserable consciousness of unworthiness? Am I worse than other men, or are all men alike—the circumstances in which they are placed producing that which we denominate good or evil in their characters? What if I determine to renounce the evil, and cling to the good; would it yet be well with me? Would Juliet, like a good angel, consent to be my guide, and lead me gently back to the forsaken paths of rectitude and peace?"

While the voice in his heart yet spake to him for good, another voice sounded in his ears, and all his virtuous resolutions melted into air.

"Godfrey," said the voice of Mary Mathews, "dear Mr. Godfrey, have I become so indifferent to you, that you will neither look at me nor speak to me?"

She was the last person in the world who at that moment he wished to see. The sight of her recalled him to a sense of his degradation, and all that he had lost by his unhappy connexion with her, and he secretly wished that she had died instead of her father.

"Mary," he said, coldly, "what do you want with me? The morning is damp and raw; you had better go home."

"What do I want with you?" reiterated the girl. "And is it come to that? Can you, who have so often sworn to me that you loved me better than anything in heaven or on earth, now ask me, in my misery, what I want with you?"

"Hot-headed rash young men will swear, and foolish girls will believe them," said Godfrey, putting his arm carelessly round her waist, and drawing her towards him. "So it has been since the world began, and so it will be until the end of time."

"Was all you told me, then, false?" said Mary, leaning her head back upon his shoulder, and fixing her large beautiful tearful eyes upon his face.

That look of unutterable fondness banished all Godfrey's good resolutions. He kissed the tears from her eyes, as he replied,

"Not exactly, Mary. But you expect too much."

"I only ask you not to cease to love me—not to leave me, Godfrey, for another."

"Who put such nonsense into your head?"

"William told me that you were going to marry Miss Whitmore."

"If such were the case, do you think I should be such a fool as to tell William?"

"Alas! I am afraid that it is only too true." And Mary burst into tears afresh. "You do not love me as you did, Godfrey, when we first met and loved. You used to sit by my side for hours, looking into my face, and holding my hand in yours; and we were happy—too happy to speak. We lived but in each other's eyes; and I hoped—fondly hoped—that that blessed dream would last for ever. I did not care for the anger of father or brother—woe is me! I never had a mother. One kiss from those dear lips—one kind word breathed from that dear mouth—sunk from my ear into my heart, and I gloried in what I ought to have considered my shame. Oh, why are you changed, Godfrey? Why should my love remain like a covered fire, consuming my heart to ashes, and making me a prey to tormenting doubts and fears, while you are unmoved by my anguish, and contented in my absence?"

"You attribute that to indifference, which is but the effect of circumstances," returned Godfrey, somewhat embarrassed by her importunities. "Perhaps, Mary, you are not aware that the death of my father has left me a poor and ruined man?"

"What difference can that possibly make in our love for each other?" And Mary's eyes brightened through a cloud of tears. "I rejoice in your loss of fortune, for it has made us equals."

"Not quite!" cried the young man, throwing her from him, as if stung by an adder. "Birth, education, the prejudices of society, have placed an eternal barrier between us. Impoverished though I be, I never can so far forget myself as to mate with a vulgar peasant!"

"Say that word again—that word of misery!" cried the unhappy girl, clinging to his arm. "Recall your many promises—the awful oath you swore on that fatal night, when I first yielded to temptation, when you solemnly declared, in the name of Almighty God, that the moment you were your own master, you would make me your wife."

"Mary," said Godfrey, sternly, "do not deceive yourself—I never will make you my wife!"

"Then God forgive you, and grant me patience to bear my wrongs!" murmured the poor girl, as she sunk down upon the ground, and buried her face in the dewy grass; while her heartless seducer continued his solitary walk to the Lodge.



CHAPTER XIV.

My mind is like a vessel tossed at sea By winds and waves—her helm and compass lost; No friendly hand to guide her o'er the waste, Or point to rocks and shoals that yawn beneath.—S.M.

The day after his uncle's funeral, as Anthony sat alone in the good rector's study, pondering over his recent loss, painfully alive to his present condition, and the uncertainty of his future prospects, he was informed by the servant that a gentleman wished to see him.

Since Algernon's death, he and Godfrey had not met except at the funeral, in which they had assisted as chief mourners. He was very anxious to speak to his cousin, and consult with him about their private affairs; and he obeyed the summons with alacrity. Instead of the person whom he expected to see, a well-dressed intelligent-looking young man advanced to meet him.

"Mr. Anthony Hurdlestone," he said, "I hope you will not consider my present visit an intrusion, when I inform you that I am your near kinsman, the son of that Edward Wildegrave who held the office of judge for so many years in India, in which country he died about six years ago. My father and your mother were first cousins by the father's side. Brought up in a distant part of England, I never had an opportunity of falling in with the only remaining branch of the Wildegrave family; and it was not until the death of my father, which left me an independent man, that I was even aware of your existence. A few months ago I bought the property of Milbank, in the parish of Ashton, which once belonged to my unfortunate uncle; and I heard your history from the wife of our farm servant, Ruth Candler. This led me to make many inquires about you; and Ruth's relations were fully confirmed by the statements of my lawyer. His account of your early trials and singular position created in my mind such an intense interest in your fate, that I lost no time in riding over to offer my services, and a share of my house until you can arrange your plans for the future. I hope you will not refuse to grant me this favor. My offer is made in the sincerity of friendship; and I shall be deeply disappointed if you refuse to accept it."

"I will most thankfully accept it," said Anthony, his fine face glowing with pleasure at this unexpected meeting. "But are you certain, Mr. Wildegrave, that my doing so will in no way inconvenience you?"

"Inconvenience me? a bachelor! Your society will be a great acquisition."

"And poor Ruth Candler—is she still living? She was a mother to me during my motherless infancy, and I shall be so glad to see her again. As to you, Mr. Wildegrave, I cannot express half the gratitude I feel for your disinterested kindness. The only circumstance which casts the least damp upon the pleasure I anticipate in my visit to Ashton, is the near vicinity of my father, who may take it into his head to imagine that I come there in order to be a spy upon his actions."

"I know the unhappy circumstances in which you are placed; yet I think that we shall be able to overrule them for your good. However disagreeable your intercourse with such a man must be, it is not prudent to lose sight of him altogether. While you are in his immediate neighborhood, he cannot easily forget that he has a son. That artful designing old scoundrel, Grenard Pike, will do all in his power to keep you apart. Your living with me will not affect Mr. Hurdlestone's pocket; and his seeing you at church will remind him, at least once a week, that you are alive."

"Church! Can a man destitute of charity feel any pleasure in attending a place of worship, that teaches him that his dearest enjoyment is a deadly sin?"

"It seems a strange infatuation; but I have remarked, that, let the weather be what it may, neither cold nor heat, nor storm nor shine, ever keeps Mark Hurdlestone from church. He is still in the old place; his fine grey locks flowing over his shoulders, with as proud and aristocratic an expression on his countenance as if his head were graced with a coronet, instead of being bound about with an old red handkerchief, which he wears in lieu of a hat; the rest of his person clothed in rags, which a beggar would spurn from him in disdain."

"Is he insensible to the disgust which his appearance must excite?"

"He seems perfectly at ease. His mind is too much absorbed in mental calculations to care for the opinion of any one. If you sit in the family pew, which I advise you to do, you will have to exercise great self-control to avoid laughing at his odd appearance."

"I am too much humiliated by his deplorable aberration of mind to feel the least inclination to mirth. I wish that I could learn to respect and love him as a father should be respected and loved; but since my last visit to Ashton my heart is hardened against him. A dislike almost amounting to loathing, has usurped the place of the affection which nature ever retains for those who are bound together by kindred ties."

"If you were more accustomed to witness his eccentricities you would be less painfully alive to their absurdity. Use almost reconciles us to anything. If you were to inhabit the same house with Mark Hurdlestone, and were constantly to listen to his arguments on the love of money, you might possibly fall in love with hoarding, and become like him a worshipper of gold."

"Avarice generally produces a reaction in the minds of those who witness its effects," said Anthony. "I will not admit the truth of your proposition, for experience has proved that the son of a miser commonly ends in being a spendthrift."

"With some exceptions," said Frederic Wildegrave, with a good-humored smile. "But really, when he pleases, your father can be a sensible, agreeable companion, and quite the gentleman. The other day I had a long chat with him, partly upon business, partly from curiosity. I wanted to buy from him an odd angle of ground, about half an acre, that made an awkward bite into a favorite field. I went to him, and, knowing his habits, I offered him at once the full value of the land. He saw that my heart was set upon the purchase, and he trebled the price. I laughed at him; and we held a long palaver of about two hours, and never came one inch nearer to the settlement of the question. At length I pulled out my purse, and counted the gold down upon the table before him. 'There is the money,' I said. 'I have offered you, Mr. Hurdlestone, the full value of the land. You can take it or leave it.'

"The sight of the gold acted upon him like the loadstone upon the needle. He began counting over the pieces; his fingers literally stuck to them. One by one they disappeared from my sight, and when all were gone, he held out his hand and begged for one guinea more. I put the pen into his hand, and the paper before him; he sighed heavily as he signed the receipt for the full sum, and told me that I was a prudent young man; that I deserved to be rich; and must succeed in the world, for I knew as well how to take care of my money as he did. He then entered upon subjects of more general interest, and I was so much pleased with his talents and general information (chiefly obtained, I believe, from books, which are his sole amusement, and with which he is amply furnished from the library at the Hall,) that I invited myself to come over and spend an evening with him. The old fox took the alarm at this. He told me that he was quite a recluse, and never received company; but that some evening, when I was quite alone, he would step in and take a cup of coffee with me—a luxury which he has never allowed himself for the last twenty years."

The conversation was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Grant. Young Wildegrave entered immediately upon the purport of his visit, and the rector, who had a very large family to support upon very limited means, readily consented to Anthony's removal to Ashton.

The morning was spent in preparing for his journey, and not without a feeling of regret Anthony bade adieu to his kind host, and the place in which he had passed the only happy years of his life.

As his friend slowly drove through Norgood Park, and past Hazelwood Lodge, he turned an anxious gaze towards the house. Why did the color flush his cheek as he hastily looked another way? Juliet was standing in the balcony, but she was not alone; a tall figure was beside her. It was Godfrey Hurdlestone, and the sight of him at such a time, and so situated, sent a pang of anguish through the heart of the young lover.

Frederic Wildegrave marked the deep dejection into which his companion had fallen, and rightly concluded that some lady was the cause. "Poor fellow," thought he, "has he, to add to his other misfortunes, been indiscreet enough to fall in love?"

Wishing to ascertain if his suspicions were true, he began to question Anthony about the inhabitants of the Lodge, and soon drew from his frank and confiding cousin the history of his unhappy passion, and the unpleasant misapprehension that had closed Captain Whitmore's doors against him.

"Well, Anthony," he said, "it must be confessed that you are an unlucky fellow. The sins of your father appear to cast a shadow upon the destinies of his son. Yet, were I in your place, I should write to Captain Whitmore, and clear up this foul stigma that your treacherous cousin has suffered to rest upon your character."

"No," said Anthony, "I cannot do it; I am too proud. She should not so readily have admitted my guilt. Let Godfrey enjoy the advantage he has gained. I swore to his father to be a friend to his son, to stand by him through good and bad report; and though his cruel duplicity has destroyed my happiness, I never will expose him to the only friend who can help him in his present difficulties."

"Your generosity savors a little too much of romance; Godfrey is unworthy of such a tremendous sacrifice."

"That does not render my solemn promise to my uncle less binding. Forbearance on my part is gratitude to him; and my present self-denial will not be without a reward."

Frederic was charmed with his companion, and could Anthony have looked into his heart, he would have been doubly convinced that he was right.

They struck into a lonely cross-country road, and half an hour's smart driving brought them to Wildegrave's residence. It was a pretty farm-house, surrounded by extensive orchards, and a large upland meadow, as smooth as a bowling-green. Anthony was delighted at the locality. The peaceful solitude of the scene was congenial to his feelings, and he expressed his pleasure in lively tones.

"'Tis an old-fashioned place," said Frederic; "but it will not be without interest to you. In that chamber to the right, your grandfather and your mother were born."

"They were both children of misfortune," replied Anthony. "But the fate of my grandfather, although he died upon the scaffold, beneath the cruel gaze of an insulting mob, was a merciful dispensation, to the death by inches which awaited his unhappy child."

"That room," resumed Frederic, "contains the portraits in oil of your grandfather and your mother. The one in the prime of life, the other a gay blooming girl of fifteen. From the happy countenances of both you would never augur aught of their miserable doom."

"You must let me occupy that chamber, cousin Wildegrave. If I may judge by my present prospects, I am likely to inherit the same evil destiny."

"These things sometimes run in families. It is the 'visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children, until the third and fourth generation,'" said Frederic, pulling up his horse at the front gate. "The mantle of the Wildegrave, Anthony, has not descended upon you alone."

On the steps of the house they were welcomed by a very fair interesting-looking girl of sixteen; but so fragile and childlike that she scarcely seemed to have entered upon her teens. She blushed deeply as she received the stranger and her brother.

"Anthony, permit me to introduce you to another cousin. This is my sister Clarissa."

"You did not inform me that you had a sister. This is indeed an unexpected and happy surprise," said Anthony, shaking hands with the young lady.

"I thought it best to introduce all my pets together," returned Wildegrave, patting his sister's meek head. "Clary is a shy, timid, little creature, very unlike your sparkling Juliet, with whom I happen to be personally acquainted; but she is a dear good girl, and the darling of her brother's heart. Her orphan state seems to press painfully upon her young mind. She seldom smiles, and I can never induce her to go into company. But we must try and break her of these monastic habits, for she is not so young as she looks, and by this time she should know her position in society."

"I do not love the world, nor the world's ways, Frederic," said his sister, gravely. "It contains but one happy spot, my own dear tranquil home, and I love it so well, that I never wish to leave it."

"But you must not expect to live at home for ever, Clary," said her brother, as he took his place at the tea-table. "Suppose I was to take it into my head to marry, what would you do then? Perhaps you would not love my wife so well as you do me."

"It is time to prepare for that when she comes," said Clary. "I think I shall live along with you, dear Fred, as long as I require an earthly home."

Something like a sad smile passed over the pensive face of the fair child, for a child she still was, in stature and simplicity.

"And so you shall, my darling. I have no idea of bringing home a new mistress to Millbank; and long may you live to enjoy your birds, and lambs, and dogs, and cats, and all the numerous pets that you have taken upon yourself to adopt and cherish."

"Ah! Fred, that reminds me of a pair of lovely Barbary doves I got to-day from some unknown friend. They came from London by the coach, in a pretty green cage, with no note or message; but simply directed to 'Miss Wildegrave.' I must bring them to show you; they are such loves."

Away ran Clary to fetch her new pets. Frederic looked after her, and laughed. "I sent for the doves, Anthony, as a little surprise. How delighted she is. She is a fragile creature, Cousin Hurdlestone; and I much fear that she will not require my care long. My mother died in giving her birth; and, since the death of my sister Lucy, who was a mother to Clary, the child has drooped sadly. She was always consumptive, and during the last two months I can perceive a great change in her for the worse."

"I do not wonder at your anxiety. Oh, that I had such a sister to love!"

"Love! she was made to love. So gentle, affectionate, and confiding. It would break my heart to lose her."

"You must not anticipate evil. And, after all, Cousin Wildegrave, is death such a dreadful evil to a fair young creature, too good and amiable to struggle with the ills of life? If I were in her place, I think I could exclaim, 'that it was a good and blessed thing to die!'"

"You are right," whispered the sweet low voice of Clarissa Wildegrave. "Death is our best friend. I see, Mr. Hurdlestone, that you and I are related—that we shall love each other, for we think alike."

This would have been a strange speech, could it have been taken in any other sense than the one in which it was meant; and Anthony, as he took the dove, the emblem of purity, from the fair hand of Clary, thought that a beautiful harmony existed between the bird and its mistress.

"I am sure we shall love each other, Miss Wildegrave. Will you accept me as a second brother?"

"I don't want two brothers, Mr. Hurdlestone. I love Frederic so well that I never mean him to have a rival. No; you shall remain my cousin. Cousins often love as well as sisters and brothers."

"And sometimes a great deal better," said Frederic, laughing. "But since you have made up your mind to love Anthony, sit down and give us another cup of tea."

"There is some one below-stairs, Mr. Anthony, who loves you at any rate," continued Clary, after handing the gentlemen their replenished cups. "One who is quite impatient to see you, who is never tired of talking about you, and calls you her dear boy, and says that she never loved any of her own sons better than you."

"Ruth! is she here? Let me see her directly," said Anthony, rising from the table.

"Sit down, Mr. Hurdlestone. I will ring the bell for her. She can speak to you here."

In a few minutes, a plainly-dressed, middle-aged woman entered the room.

"My dear foster-mother! Is that you?" said Anthony, springing to meet her.

"Why yees, Muster Anthony," said the honest creature, flinging her arms round his neck, and imprinting on either cheek a kiss that rang through the room; while she laughed and cried in the same breath. "The Lord love you! How you bees grown. Is this here fine young gentleman the poor half-starved little chap that used to come begging to Ruth Candler for a sup o' milk and a morsel o' bread? Well, yer bees a man now, and able to shift for yoursel, whiles I be a poor old woman, half killed by poverty and hard work. When you come in for your great fortin, don't forget old Ruth."

"Indeed I will not, my good mother; if ever that day arrives, I shall know how to reward my old friends. But you make a strange mistake, Ruth, when you call yourself old. You look as young as ever. And how are all my old play-fellows?"

"Some dead; some in service; and my eldest gal, Mr. Anthony, is married to a Methody parson, only think, my Sally, the wife of a Methody parson."

"She was a good girl."

"Oh, about as good as the rest on us. And, pray, how do old Shock come along? Is the old dog dead?"

"Of old age, Ruth. He got so fat and sleek in my uncle's house, you never would have known the poor starved brute."

"In truth, you were a poverty pair—jist a bag o' bones the twain o' ye. I wonder the old Squire warn't ashamed to see you walk the earth. An' they do tell me, Measter Anthony, that he be jist as stingy as ever."

"Age seldom improves avarice."

"Why, nothing gets the better for being older, but strong beer. An' that sometimes gets a little sourish with keeping."

Anthony took the hint. "Ah, I remember. Your husband was very fond of ale—particularly in harvest-time You must give him this, to drink my health." And he slipped a guinea into her hand. "And to-morrow, when I come over the hill, I shall expect him to halloo largess."

"The Lord love you, for a dear handsome young gentleman. An' my Dick will do that with the greatest of pleasure." And, with an awkward attempt at a curtsey, the good woman withdrew.

After chatting some little time with Frederic and Clary, Anthony retired to the room appropriated to his use.

The quiet, unobtrusive kindness of his young relatives had done much to soothe and tranquillize his mind; and he almost wished, as he paced to and fro the narrow limits of his airy little chamber, that he could forget that he had ever known and loved the beautiful and fascinating Juliet Whitmore.

"Why should mere beauty possess such an influence over the capricious wandering heart of man?" he thought; "yet it is not beauty alone that makes me prefer Juliet to the rest of her sex. Her talents, her deep enthusiasm, captivate me more than her handsome face and graceful form. Oh, Juliet! Juliet! why did we ever meet? or is Godfrey destined to enact the same tragedy that ruined my uncle's peace, and consigned my mother to an early grave?"

As these thoughts passed rapidly through his mind, his eyes rested upon his mother's picture. It was the first time that he had ever beheld her but in dreams. Radiant in all its girlish beauty, the angelic face smiled down upon him with life-like fidelity. The rose that decked her dark floating locks, less vividly bright than the glowing cheeks and lips of happy youth; the large black eyes, "half languor and half fire," that had wept tears of unmitigated anguish over his forlorn infancy—rested upon his own, as if they were conscious of his presence. Anthony continued to gaze upon the portrait till the blinding tears hid it from his sight.

"Oh, my mother!" he exclaimed, "better had it been for thee to have died in the bloom of youth and innocence, than to have fallen the victim of an insidious—villain," he would have added, but that villain was his father; and he paused without giving utterance to the word, shocked at himself that his heart had dared to frame the impious word his conscience forbade him to speak.

What a host of melancholy thoughts crowded into his mind while looking on that picture. The grief and degradation of his early days: his dependent situation while with his uncle: the unkind taunts of his ungenerous cousin; his blighted affections and dreary prospects for the future. How bitterly did he ponder over these!

What had he to encourage hope, or give him strength to combat with the ills that beset him on every side? Homeless and friendless, he thought, like Clary, that death would be most welcome, and sinking upon his knees, he prayed long and fervently for strength to bear with manly fortitude the sorrows which from his infant years had been his bitter portion.

Who ever sought counsel of God in vain? An answer of peace was given to his prayers. "Endure thou unto the end, and I will give thee a crown of life." He rose from his knees, and felt that all was right; that his present trials were awarded to him in mercy; that had all things gone on smoother with him, like Godfrey, he might have yielded himself up to sinful pleasures, or followed in the footsteps of his father, and bartered his eternal happiness for gold.

"This world is not our rest. Then why should I wish to pitch my tent on this side of Jordan, and overlook all the blessings of the promised land? Let me rather rejoice in tribulations, if through them I may obtain the salvation of God."

That night Anthony enjoyed a calm refreshing sleep. He dreamed of his mother, dreamed that he saw her in glory, that he heard her speak words of comfort to his soul, and he awoke with the rising sun, to pour out his heart in thankfulness to Him who had bestowed upon him the magnificent boon of life.

The beauty of the morning tempted him to take a stroll in the fields before breakfast. In the parlor he had left his hat and cane. On entering the room to obtain them, he found Clary already up and reading by the open window. "Good morning, gentle coz," and he playfully lifted one of the glossy curls that hid her fair face from his view. "What are you studying?"

"For eternity," said Clarissa, in a sweet solemn tone, as she raised to his face her mild serious eyes.

"'Tis an awful thought."

"Yes. But one full of joy. This is the grave, cousin Anthony. This world to which we cling, this sepulchre in which we bury our best hopes, this world of death. That which you call death is but the gate of life; the dark entrance to the land of love and sunbeams."

What a holy fire flashed from her meek eyes as she spoke! What deep enthusiasm pervaded that still fair face! Could this inspired creature be his child-like simple little cousin? Anthony continued to gaze upon her with astonishment, and when the voice ceased, he longed to hear her speak again.

"Tell me, Clary, what power has conquered, in your young heart, the fear of death?"

"Truth!—simple truth. That mighty pillar that upholds the throne of God. I sought the truth. I loved the truth, and the truth has made me free. Death! from a child I never feared death.

"I remember, Anthony, when I was a very little girl, so young that it is the very first thing that memory can recall, I was sick, and sitting upon the ground at my dear sister Lucy's feet. My head was thrown back upon her lap, and it ached sadly. She patted my curls, and leaning forward, kissed my hot brow, and told me, 'That if I were a good girl when I died I should go to heaven.' Eagerly I asked her—What was death, and what was heaven?

"Death, she told me, was the end of life here, and the beginning of a new life that could never end, in a better world. That heaven was a glorious place, the residence of the great God, who made me and the whole world. But no pain or sorrow was ever felt in that blissful place. That all the children of God were good and happy.

"I wept for joy when she told me all this. I forgot my pain. I longed to die and go to heaven; and from that hour death became to me a great anticipation of future enjoyment. It mingled in all my thoughts. It came to me in dreams, and it always wore a beautiful aspect.

"There was a clear deep pond in our garden at Harford, surrounded with green banks covered with flowers, and overhung with willows. I used to sit upon that bank and weave garlands of the sweet buds and tender willow shoots, and build castles about that future world. The image of the heavens lay within the waters, and the trees and flowers looked more beautiful reflected in their depths. Ah, I used to think, one plunge into that lovely mirror, and I should reach that happy world—should know all. But this I said in my simplicity, for I knew not at that tender age that self-destruction was a sin; that man was forbidden to unclose a gate of which the Almighty held the key. His merciful hand was stretched over the creature of his will, and I never made the rash attempt.

"As I grew older, I saw three loved and lovely sisters perish one by one. Each, in turn, had been a mother to me, and I loved them with my whole heart. Their sickness was sorrowful, and I often wept bitterly over their bodily sufferings. But when the conqueror came, how easily the feeble conquered. Instead of fearing the destroyer, as you call Death, they went forth to meet him with songs of joy, and welcomed him as a friend.

"Oh, had you seen my Lucy die! Had you seen the glory that rested upon her pale brow; had you heard the music that burst from her sweet lips ere they were hushed for ever; had you seen the hand that pointed upward to the skies; you would have exclaimed, with her, 'O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory?'"

The child paused, for her utterance was choked with tears. Anthony took her hand; he started, for pale as it was, it burnt with an unnatural heat. Fever was in every vein. "Are you ill, Clary?"

"Ill? Oh, no! but I never feel very well. I have had my summons, Anthony; I shall not be long here."

Seeing him look anxiously in her face, she smiled, and going to a corner of the room, brought forward a harp which had escaped his observation, and said, playfully, "I have made you sad, cousin, when I wished to cheer you. Come, I will sing to you. Fred tells me that I sing well. If you love music as I do, it will soon banish sorrow from your heart."

There was something so refreshing in the candor of the young creature, that it operated upon the mind of Anthony like a spell, and when the finest voice he ever in his life heard burst upon his ear, and filled the room with living harmony, he almost fancied he could see the halo encircling the lofty brows of the fair young saint:

The flowers of earth are fair As the hopes we fondly cherish; But the canker-worm of care Bids the best and brightest perish. The heavens to-day are bright, But the morn brings storm and sorrow; And the friends we love to-night May sleep in earth to-morrow.

Spirit, unfold thy drooping wing; Up, up to thy kindred skies. Life is a sad and weary thing; He only lives who dies. His the immortal fruits that grow By life's eternal river, Where the shining waves in their onward flow Sing Glory to God for ever.

These lines were sung to a wild, irregular air, but one full of pathos and beauty.

"You must give me that hymn, Clary."

"It is gone, and the music with it. I shall never be able to remember it again. But I will play you another which will please you better, though the words are not mine." And turning again to the harp, she sang, in a low, plaintive strain, unlike her former triumphant burst of song:

Slowly, slowly tolls the bell, A heavy note of sorrow; But gaily will its blithe notes swell The bridal peal to-morrow, To-morrow!

The dead man in his shroud to-night No hope from earth can borrow; The bride within her tresses bright Shall wreathe the rose to-morrow, To-morrow!

The drops that gem that lowly bier, Though shed in mortal sorrow, Will not recall a single tear In festal halls to-morrow! To-morrow!

'Tis thus through life, from joy and grief, Alternate shades we borrow; To-night in tears we find relief, In smiles of joy to-morrow, To-morrow!

"What divine music!"

"And the words, Cousin Anthony—you say nothing about the words."

"Are both your own?"

"Oh, no; I am only in heart a poet. I lack the power to give utterance to—

'The thoughts that breathe and words that burn.'

They were written by a friend—a friend, whom, next to Fred, I love better than the whole world—Juliet Whitmore."

"And do you know Juliet?"

"I will tell you all about it," said Clary, leaving her harp and sitting down beside him. "After dear Lucy died, I was very, very ill, and Fred took me to the sea-side for the benefit of bathing. I was a poor, pale, wasted, woe-begone thing. We lodged next door to the house occupied by Captain Whitmore, who was spending the summer upon the coast with his family.

"He picked acquaintance with me upon the beach one day; and whenever nurse took me down to bathe, he would pat my cheek, and tell me to bring home a red rose to mix with the lily in my face. I told him, laughingly, 'That roses never grew by the sea shore,' and he told me to come with him to his lodgings and see. And then he introduced me to Juliet, and we grew great friends, for though she was much taller and more womanly, she was only one year older than me. And we used to walk, and talk a great deal to each other, all the time we remained at ——, which was about three months; and, though we have not met since Fred bought Millbank, and came to this part of the country, she often writes to me sweet letters, full of poetry,—such poetry as she knows will please me; and in one of her letters, Cousin Anthony, she wrote a good deal about you."

"About me!—Oh, tell me, Clary, what she said about me."

"She said," replied the child, blushing very deeply, and speaking so low that Anthony could only just catch the words, "that she loved you. That you were the only man she had ever seen that realized her dreams of what man ought to be. And what she said of you made me love you too, and I felt proud that you were my cousin."

"Dear amiable Clary," and the delighted Anthony unconsciously covered the delicate white hand held within his own with passionate kisses.

"You must not take me for Juliet," and Clary quietly withdrew her hand. "But I am so glad that you love her, because we shall be able to talk about her. I have a small portfolio she gave me, full of pretty poems, which I will give to you, for I know all the poems by heart."

Anthony no longer heard her. He was wrapt up in a blissful dream, from which he was in no hurry to awaken. Many voices spake to his soul, but over all, he heard one soft deep voice, whose tones pierced its utmost recesses, and infused new life and hope into his breast, which said—"Juliet loves you.'"



CHAPTER XV.

She hath forsaken God and trusted man, And the dark curse by man inherited Hath fallen upon her.—S.M.

We must now return to Godfrey Hurdlestone, and we find him comfortably settled in the hospitable mansion of Captain Whitmore, a great favorite with aunt Dorothy, and an object of increasing interest and sympathy to the fair Juliet.

Had she forgotten Anthony? Oh, no. She still loved him, but dared not whisper to her own heart the forbidden fact. Did she believe him guilty? Not exactly. But the whole affair was involved in mystery, and she had not confidence enough in her own judgment to overrule the prejudices of others. She could not pronounce him innocent, and she strove to banish his image as a matter of necessity—a sacrifice that duty demanded of her—from her mind.

Could she receive with pleasure the attentions of such a man as Godfrey Hurdlestone? She did, for he was so like Anthony, that there were times when she could almost have fancied them one and the same. He wanted the deep feeling—the tenderness—the delicacy of her absent lover, but he had wit, beauty, and vivacity, an imposing manner, and that easy assurance which to most women is more attractive than modest merit.

Juliet did not love Godfrey, but his conversation amused her, and helped to divert her mind from brooding over unpleasant thoughts. She received him with kindness, for his situation claimed her sympathy, and she did all in her power to reconcile him to the change which had taken place in his circumstances. Godfrey was not insensible to the difference in her manner, when addressing him, to what it had been formerly, and he attributed that to a growing attachment which was but the result of pity. Without giving him the least encouragement to entertain hopes she never meant to realize, Juliet, with all the romance of her nature, had formed the happy scheme of being able to convert the young infidel from the paths of doubt and error, and animating him with an earnest zeal to obtain a better heritage than the one he had lost.

Young enthusiasts are fond of making proselytes, and Juliet was not aware that she was treading upon dangerous ground, with a very subtle companion. Untouched by the sacred truths she sought to impress upon his mind, and which indeed were very distasteful to him, Godfrey, in order to insinuate himself into the good graces of his fair instructress, seemingly lent a willing ear to her admonitions, and pretended to be deeply sensible of their importance.

Since he had arrived at an age to think for himself, he had rejected the Bible, and never troubled himself to peruse its pages. Juliet proposed that they should read it together, and an hour every afternoon was chosen for that purpose. Godfrey, in order to lengthen these interviews, started objections at every line, in his apparent anxiety to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

With all the zeal of a youthful and self-elected teacher, Juliet found a peculiar pleasure in trying to clear up the disputed points; in removing his doubts and strengthening his faith; and, when at length he artfully seemed to yield to her arguments, the glow that brightened her cheeks, and proclaimed the innocent joy of her heart, gave to her lovely countenance a thousand additional charms.

One evening their lecture had been protracted to an unusual length; and Juliet concluded from the silence of her pupil, that he was at last convinced of the truth of her arguments. She closed the sacred volume, and awaited her companion's answer, but he remained buried in profound thought.

"Mr. Godfrey, do you still believe in the non-existence of a Deity?"

"Forgive me, Juliet, if my thoughts had strayed from heaven to earth. I will, however, tell you the purport of them. If all men are equal in the sight of the Creator, why does not the same feeling pervade the breast of his creatures?"

"Because men are not endowed with the wisdom of God, neither can they judge righteously, as he judges. That all men are equal in his sight, the text we have just read sufficiently proves: 'The rich and the poor meet together. The Lord is the maker of them all.'"

"Then why is wealth an object of adoration to the crowd, whilst poverty, even in those who once possessed great riches, is regarded with contempt and pity?"

"The world gives a value to things which in themselves are of no importance," said Juliet. "I think, however, that I should scorn myself, could I regard with indifference the friends I once loved, because they had been deprived of their worldly advantages."

"You make me proud of my poverty, Miss Whitmore. It has rendered me rich in your sympathy."

"Obtain your wealth from a higher source, Mr. Hurdlestone," said Juliet, not, perhaps, displeased with the compliment, "and you will learn to regard with indifference the riches of the world."

"But supposing, my dear friend, for argument's sake, that you had a lover to whom you were fondly attached, and he was suddenly deprived of the fortune which had placed you on an equality, would this circumstance alter your regard for him?"

"Certainly not."

"And, in spite of these disadvantages, you would become his wife?"

"That would depend on circumstances. I might be under the guidance of parents, who, from prudential motives, might forbid so rash a step; and it would be no act of friendship to the man I loved, to increase his difficulties by attempting to share them."

"And in such a case would you not act upon the decision of your own heart?"

"I dare not. The heart, blinded by its affections for the object of its love, might err in its decision, and involve both parties in ruin."

"But you could not call this love?"

"Yes, Mr. Hurdlestone, and far more deserving of the name than the sickly sentiment that so often wears the guise of real affection."

"This girl is too much of a philosopher. I shall never be able to win her to my purpose," said Godfrey, as Juliet quitted the room.

A few days after this conversation, Godfrey proposed taking a ride on horseback with Miss Whitmore.

Juliet was fond of this exercise, in which she greatly excelled. This evening she did not wish to go, but was overruled by her father and Aunt Dorothy. The evening was warm and cloudy, and Juliet often looked upwards and prophesied a storm.

"It will not come on before night," said her companion. "I remember Anthony and I, when boys, were overtaken on this very spot by a tremendous tempest." It was the first time he had suffered the name of his cousin to pass his lips in the presence of Juliet. It brought the color into her cheeks, and in a timid voice she inquired if he knew what had become of Anthony?

"He had a second cousin, it seems, a Mr. Wildegrave, who is residing in his father's parish; Anthony has found a temporary home with him."

Why did Juliet turn so pale? Did the recollection of the fair amiable girl she had met and loved at —— trouble her? She spoke no more during their long ride. On their way home, they entered a dark avenue, that led to the Lodge, and passed through Norgood Park.

"I hate this road," said Godfrey. "I have never travelled it since the old place passed into the hands of strangers."

"It was thoughtless in me to propose this path, Mr. Godfrey; let us return by the road."

She checked her horse as she spoke, when her attention was aroused by a female figure, seated in a dejected attitude beneath an old oak tree. Her hair hung wildly about her shoulders; and her head was buried between her knees.