your uncle's gold. As to yourself, my dear Mary, you are what he considers every woman under such, or indeed, any circumstances-the alloy: you cannot be angry at his viewing you in the same light as his own daughter? Had we been at another hotel, he would have commanded us here, to show that nothing could be right but what he counselled."

"Thank you, dearest Ellen, you set things in a cheerful light; but my resolution is unchanged: HE shall never have to reproach me hereafter. Never could I bear a doubting look from him,-at least, he shall respect me!"

"What a world it is!" thought Ellen Revis. "I who have offered up all my own feelings and affections a willing sacrifice to secure their happiness-and, now

She observed with pain the ravages which sorrow had made upon the features of her friend, her livid cheeks, her swollen eyes, her brow contracted by the agony of thought

-Magdalene entered-Lord Norley had sent the carriage, a second time, for Lady Ellen Revis, and informed her that he waited dinner.

The two friends looked into each other's face, and Lady Ellen could no longer repress her tears. "To-morrow, dearest Mary, to-morrow I will see you," she whispered. "God bless you till then.”

She stopped at the door of Horace Brown's sitting-room, and knocked, -the reply was, "Who is there?" She entered. Harry was seated by the side of his early friend, and when he removed his hand from his cheek, it was glittering with tears. The old man, too, was visibly af fected -he could hardly speak ;—he tried to rise, but Lady Ellen prevented nim. There was a coldness in his manner, a decided effort to restrain feelings which ill brooked control: she took the hand, which he hardly offered, and pressed it to her lips.

"You are not one of them," he said, and his eyes glistened; "you do not fly from her--do not-I will not go on-I should say too much-more than beseemed me -in your presence; but the proud peer shall repent itby heaven he shall!"

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Lady Ellen put her hand to his mouth,-" Forgive me, child, forgive me," he continued, in an altered and subdued voice, “I forgot all but that beloved one and her sufferings." In a moment his spirit changed. • You had better go Harry Mortimer; why should you remain with

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a proscribed people? By the lord, one would think we were gipsies-vagabonds! not remain in the same hotel!" "Who told you this, sir?" inquired Lady Ellen, glancing reproachfully at Harry.

"Oh, not he, be sure; to save my feelings, he would compromise my dignity; for a man, madam, may have dignity, though he be not a peer,-the man, I take it, is the oldest creation! It was Peter, Peter Pike, told me;poor honest fellow, it was not pleasing to him to hear such conduct canvassed in the kitchen of an hotel; however, it has calmed me." His features, his limbs, were trembling with the rage that flashed from his eyes while he repeated, "calmed, quite calmed me. I have not felt so tranquil these six weeks! Will you, Lady Ellen, have the goodness to present my compliments, Horace Brown's compliments, to Lord Norley-perhaps I ought to say respects, considering the difference of our situations" (and he drew himself up, as proud people always do when talking of their humility)" compliments must do, however, and tell him that I thank him for his anodyne,—nothing could at this time tranquilize my feelings so effectually as his absence?"

Lady Ellen looked, as she really felt, much mortified: the keen grey eye of Uncle Horace rested on her, and within the same instant the knowledge he possessed of her noble and dignified character appealed to his feelings. There was a proud flush on her cheek, and her lips were compressed, as if to keep in the sharp reply that was struggling for utterance--he saw all―he remembered all—

"Forgive, dearest lady, forgive me!" he exclaimed; "forgive the irritability and petulence of an old, and, I believe, a proud spirit, which has been lashed, goaded on by circumstances beyond its power of forbearance. I know you will, Lady Ellen. I thank and bless you for your affectionate attention to my Mary. Poor girl! she has no protector now but me! It is fruitless, Harry-fruitless and useless all. She never shall enter a family, unless it is considered an honour to receive her. Once more, Lady Ellen, farewell! I am glad Mary has genuine merchant's blood in her veins. of this dissolution of partnership before, but on other grounds. God bless you, Lady Ellen,—I must speak a few more words to Mortimer. God bless you! while Horace Brown lives, he can never forget Lady Ellen Revis."

*

*

*

*

some drops of a She spoke to me

The cup of sorrow appeared as if filled to overflowing for all connected with the merchant's family.

"Do not," said Magdalene Marsden to Mary, "do not regret my constant attendance on your mother; believe me, it is the greatest mercy that could visit me now, to have my thoughts and feelings so fully occupied; if they were not, I should not cease to think of Philip, and his painful absence. Wild and wayward as he is, he would not disappear without giving me some clue to his intentions, or informing me of his whereabouts, unless, indeed, he was meditating what involved danger in some shape to himself: that is what I dread, Oh, it is, believe me, a blessing, in my present state of mind, to be so completely occupied. I have no time for thought, and your dear mother's sufferings call upon my feelings continually, and without cessation."

"You extract good from evil," said Mary; "it is a rare alchymy!"

"I used to do so once," she replied; "but I fear I have almost lost the art. I valued things that have been torn from me, too deeply not to regret their loss; though I resign myself to the infliction; still I feel it as such. I might almost say, that while I love I tremble; for never did I love any thing I did not lose,—it is like a fatality!"

"Are you a fatalist, Magdalene?"

"Not exactly: I would not be so, if I could help it; but I do believe that all happens for the best, and that, as it is impossible for us to foresee, so it is impossible for us to prevent; the darker the cloud, the brighter, I know, will be the sunshine; but clouds have obscured my path, the darkness of which it is hard to forget, even in sunshine. There is a presentiment of evil at this moment which hangs about me like a shroud; I would fain dispel it, yet I cannot !— every step upon the stair, even while our mother slumbers, seems as the herald of evil news, and often I start, fancying that some unknown voice called Philip--Philip!"

"How dearly you love your brother! I wish I had a brother to love!" sighed Mary.

"Do not desire it," she replied; "a few years past, and I had all I loved-mother-brothers- and one whom, though I left, I perhaps loved best of all! Not only did I love them, but they were worthy of all the affection I could bestow. Where are they now? You see I am-alone!" "Your brother, Magdalene, your brother Philip," said Mary, trying to recall her from her sorrow, while, poor girl, she was almost sinking beneath her own!

VOL. II.-16

"I will go to your mother," she exclaimed, starting as from a dream at the sound of his name;

to remain unemployed, I should go mad!"

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were my mind

CHAPTER. XXV.

To the just gods, not us, pertaineth vengeance.

Thomson.

To connect the present with the past, I must request, good reader, that you will call to your remembrance the two ostlers at the posting-house where Mary changed horses on the night of her intended journey to London. Time travelled with those two unromantic specimens of human nature pretty much as it does with every one else; they continued to sneer at, and suspect each other, growing together like two nettles, from, habit, not inclination, and agreeing only upon the main point of their trade, that of extracting as much from a customer as they could, without being subjected to a charge of downright dishonesty.

"Rabbit-skin," as he was called by his associates, had profited by the hint his assistant had, perhaps, unwisely given him, taken more than one fee, and discovered more than one secret, without his knowledge. Cunning, when properly educated, ripens into cleverness; and cleverness, if uncultivated, usually degenerates into cunning. Cunning they both were, and, consequently, wise in their own opinion.

It has been already shown, that Philip Marsden had resolved the deep and stern resolve which parts from a man's heart only with his life's blood, of finding D'Oraine, and punishing him as he merited. The one idea of vengeance filled his whole soul,-it was a desire ever present with him since his brother's death. Recent events renewed his hatred, and he had thought or feeling for none other. He abandoned himself entirely to this dreadful passion; he stimulated his excited feelings by the picture of his brother's death, and the recapitulation of the insult offered in

bygone days to his sister-pictures, his vivid and over-excited imagination had so often drawn, that they haunted him by day and night. Instead of casting them from him, he cherished and nourished them, to the exclusion of every other; and when, notwithstanding his energy and activity, he failed in discovering D'Oraine's haunt, failed in tracing him anywhere, or by any means, it was with a galled and worn out spirit he resolved to go to Southampton, more from a desire to discover if Magdalene had heard anything that could lead him to his enemy's lair, than from a wish to know how his friends supported their accumulated misfortunes. In his present frame of mind, I doubt if he had seen his sister dying before his eyes, that it would have warped him from his purpose.

It must not be imagined that he did not feel the greatest indignation at the insult offered to Miss Lorton; he felt it keenly; but only as an additional stimulant to his deep and settled hatred of D'Oraine. He had wrought himself to the belief, that to rid the earth of such a monster, would be a benefit to mankind, and had resolved to accomplish his purpose, even if his life paid the forfeit.

D'Oraine had hitherto evaded his pursuit ;-yet the publicity given to the occurrence, the intense anxiety which consequently prevailed, particularly in the neighbourhood of Southampton and Portsmouth-the watchfulness of the police-the energy of the legal authorities-rendered the wily foreigner's escape to the continent from that line of coast almost impossible. All interested in his capture, befieved that he was concealed in the neighbourhood, though they had failed in discovering where; this belief occasioned Philip Marsden, during the past days, to whirl round and round the district, like some wild bird of prey, impatient to pounce upon his victim.

Worn, and weary in body and in mind, he entered the inn to which I have just alluded; he had wandered on foot for miles across the country, led on, at first, by one rumour, and then by another, to the hope that he might at last discover the object of his search. Nothing could exceed the anxiety which prevailed everywhere to hunt out the miscreant who had so grossly outraged the hallowed laws of our beloved land;-nothing else was talked of; it was the theme of conversation in every house, in every cottage. Mary's beauty and accomplishments were extolled beyond all example, her wealth exaggerated, until she might have been imagined one entire and perfect