"It was one evening when N. had gone from home under singular agitation of mind, that she requested I would follow him to a gaming-house which he was known to frequent. This place was celebrated for the pillage of all who were not initiated in the crooked and mysterious arts of those in whose hands it was. As the police of Paris was at that time the most vigorous in the world, the owners of this institution contrived so to fortify the approach to it, that, in cases of alarm, they might remove all the instruments of their trade before the officers entered. By secret means, however, I obtained an entrance; and I opened the door as I should that of the regions appropriated to the wicked. When I entered, every one appeared to be full of his employment. As my business was rather to see than to be seen, I took my station in a place fitted to my purpose. The scene which presented itself, had for me a kind of terrific interest which I cannot explain to you. When I contemplated the faces around me, I seemed to be introduced to a new set of passions; or to combinations of them more terrible than those which usually present themselves. I fancied in almost every man a Cethegus or a Catiline-a conspirator against the happiness of mankind. Enthusiast

as I am in liberty, I could have almost rejoiced, when all the malignant humours of the body politic seemed thus drawn to a point, to have seen the hand of authority forcibly cut them away. To this hour, many of the figures of this society haunt me. I saw hands which charity never lifted,' lips that never prayed, knees that never bent, countenances where, if I may so express it, 'God 'had forgotten to be gracious.' The only ray of comfort which broke through the awful gloom was that which showed me that each one in this assembly appeared to be let loose against another as ferocious as himself. But even that vanished when I turned my eyes upon N.-Wan and emaciated, his. forehead ridged with a thousand storms, his eye fixed and glaring, his manner sullen and desperate he recalled to my mind the first murderer, when driven out as a fugitive from God. His punishment' was even now greater than he ‹ could bear.'-But let us hasten, my Gustavus, from this unholy ground. I found an opportunity, during the night, of painting to him in strong colours the terrors of his situation; but his answer indicated, that he had looked his ruin too often in the face, to be restored to virtue by any picture I could bring before him. I spoke to him of Caro

6

and barred his door against that bosom on which he might profitably have rested all his cares. Caroline heard his door close, and, although she felt the cruelty and the desperation of that sorrow which refuses to communicate itself, she little thought that he had now shut himself from her and from the world for ever.

"After I quitted him, the good fortune or the knavery of his associates had put the last stroke to his undoing; and the lofty N. was now a beggar. Pride sometimes supports men under an honorable poverty, but no one is proud of the desolation which his own hand has made. N. felt all the agonies of a wounded spirit, when he saw in himself the executioner, as it were, of his own dignity and happiness. In the solitude of his chamber he was able to measure his calamities. on every side. It was here, that, with every thing except God shut out, he found the eye of God too strong for him; and resolved, in order to escape the certain evils of his present state, to rush upon what (according to his creed) were the tremendous uncertainties of another. He determined upon making the awful experiment whether there was any hell worse than the bosom of a gamester. In little more than an hour the watch

ful Caroline heard the report of a pistol in his room. Wild with fear, she rushed to his door. It gave way, and she reached him just soon enough to mark those last struggles and convulsions with which the soul tears itself from the body. In the fixed contemplation of this awful spectacle she lost her reason. When I was sent for, I found indeed, that they had forcibly separated her from the corpse but that the bleeding image seemed to haunt her every where. She did not, for a long time, notice me; and at last threw on me only that vacant gaze which indicates that the imagination and the memory are too busy to let the senses do their duty. By degrees, however, the violence of her disorder subsided, but her complete recovery was for a long time doubtful. Madness often delights in some particular position or action; and the disordered mind will mischievously act over again those scenes in which its frenzy originated. I have watched her sit for hours, with her hand projected before her face, in the attitude of intense expectation. In this situation, if she heard the slightest noise, she would shriek aloud, "A pistol!'-and rush towards the sound. Even now, if she sees the mountain sportsman, with his gun, pursuing the wild chamois amidst the rocks

of St. Foy, she will hasten to her room-as if afraid to trust the slight thread by which reason is held. God however preserves that reason to her, and she will use it, Gustavus, to give Emily to none but a Christian."

T

CHAP. IV.

It was on the morning of Sunday that Gustavus first opened his eyes in 0. He had some difficulty in convincing himself that the elements were not convulsed. The darkness of a great city to him, who had never quitted Switzerland, was almost supernatural, and the sound of coaches seemed like subterraneous thunder. The footsteps around him were loud and incessant. "These people seem, at all events, to have bodies," he said.

It was some consolation to him to hear the note of a distant bell, which hailed the dawning of the Sabbath. It is far less certain whether sounds move in lines or circles, than that those who would know the way to the heart, would do well to follow them. Gustavus was transported in a moment to St. Foy