best place for her. I wonder why and for what some people live? Providence! As if Providence ever troubled itself about such wretched worms as we are. She must die; she cannot surely exist as she is. How like a ghost she looked, if there are such things as ghosts."

Then he continued writing, and would again listen. His hearing was very acute; and he distinguished the retreating footsteps of the Earl, Winifred, and the doctor. But he had some pages to fill, and he set himself resolutely to his task. When it was finished, he packed up the papers, and carefully wrapped them in a quarto sheet of writing paper; sealed, directed, and then pocketed them.

They will be," he said, "safer with me than any one else. And now-now for the last appeal!" He laughed bitterly to himself. "How few people would suspect me of this folly! But I suppose it is in my blood. I should be a slave to such a passion, when I consider what my parents were; and this passion masters me!"

"There is only one kind of love," said the great philosopher before quoted; "but there are a thousand different imitations of it." And he adds that many people talk about love, but few ever know that passion. Perhaps it is as well they do not. Husbands and wives who are very fond of each other, go through life very well on the imitation. Similarity of tastes, an equal level of wisdom or stupidity, habit, convenience, a nice position, a title, a good house, a fine income, an old name—all these pass for love. But they are not love, notwithstanding. People have got so used to the imitation, that they are quite angry if they ever meet with the original. One young gentleman, in whom the true passion had really begun to burn, seized his mistress's hand, and kissed it fondly.

"My dear George," said the nymph, as she passed her kerchief over her hand, and drew on her glove, "pray, don't be so ridiculous."

Cupid took flight for ever. Our playwrights and novelists do not even attempt to describe love, and are poor hands at lovemaking, or else Shakespeare and the Elizabethan poets knew nothing about it. We are, no doubt, very clever, but we cannot yet beat Shakespeare; and he happens to be borne out

by a cloud of witnesses. Amidst the numerous passions— ambition, envy, savage indignation, overweening conceit of his own merit—that burned in the bosom of Edgar Wade, one pure and true passion had managed to establish itself; and its object was, by some mischance, Natalie Fifine!

"Once more," he muttered to himself, "I will see her once more! Alas, why is my soul so ill at ease?”

He went down-stairs to his chamber, which was next door to Mrs Wade's, and taking from the chiffonier a bottle, filled a wine glass full of brandy, and drank it. The draught seemed to do him goʊd, and he took another. At any other time this might have intoxicated him; but now the draught only served to make his nerves steady, and to give him determination. He reached the door of the room wherein poor Mrs Wade lay, very still and quiet now—as we shall all once lie-and would have passed it; but a sensation, which he could neither account for nor control, made him enter the room to gaze upon the dead. He did not know that she was dead, but he felt it. The silence, where there had been the sound of voices, might have told it; but that of itself was by no means a proof. Edgar Wade was not astonished, when he opened the door, to see the face of the dead covered with a white handkerchief, and the Sister kneeling at her temporary

With a terrible calmness, he approached the bed, and lifted the face-cloth, and gazed for a moment fixedly at the face of the dead. The Sister arose from her knees, and looked at him, with a meek astonishment upon her features.

"She is at least at rest," he said, in answer to that questioning face.

"She is, poor creature!" answered the nurse; "and, pray Heaven, in peace."

The features, so calm and placid, seemed to give a tacit answer to the prayer; and Edgar Wade, mechanically uttering a feeling which came upon him, said—

“And, after all, she looks as if she had died before her time.” “No!” returned the Sister, “ no one does that. Her infelicity had years too many. Her sorrows seemed to be of longer duration than her life. All is ended now. It is for us to learn a lesson of patience from her days of sorrow."

Edgar Wade replaced the cloth; and he seemed again impelled to ask if Mrs Wade had said any more than she did when she had recognised him; and to his question, awkwardly put, the nursing Sister answered in the negative.

"She seemed to shield you. And I am sure she loved you still, and prayed for you."

The barrister's eyes emitted a softened light as he turned to the nursing Sister; but he said nothing, and turned round to leave the room.

"Oh, sir!" cried the religieuse, suddenly and with fervour, "if you have been guilty of injustice and harshness to this poor lady, accept her forgiveness, and soften your heart to her now she is dead. Repent what you have done amiss. We are all weak and erring. The presence of the dead should teach us to know ourselves. Cast out what is wrong in you, and try to live a new life." Never had the little woman before spoken so much to a man since she had entered the sisterhood. Hers was a passive life. It was her business to do and not to speak, to refrain her tongue, and to perform her daily acts of duty. She wondered at herself, after she had spoken so earnestly, raising the ivory cross which hung from her waist in her pale, thin hands as she spoke, and placing that emblem before her as a silent ambassador of good faith. The barrister said nothing, but held up one hand as if to deprecate further intercession, and passed the other over his burning forehead and weary eyes. Thus he left the room.

"They fool me," he said, bitterly, "to the top of my bent. They all run in the same groove. It is I that am in the wrong —it is I that have to repent. God help me! will no one put himself in my place?" He was very angry with the world, as most selfish people are, at intervals, during all their lives. He was not appreciated, and not sufficiently regarded, and never had been; and he had, by a long course of meditation, burned these facts in upon his brain. It was, therefore, in the same bitter humour that Edgar Wade again passed through the door that led into the mews, and summoned the stable-help to saddle his horse; mounted upon which, he was not long before he sought the house wherein she dwelt whom he loved more than any one else in the world. When the servant opened the

garden door, she was apparently inclined to dispute the passage of the barrister, since he led, as had been his wont, his horse across the footpath and into the garden, tying it to the verandah while he entered. But, at that time, there was that about Edgar Wade that did not permit of denial or questioning.

"Mademoiselle is not at home," said the servant-"not at home to any one."

"You mean to say that she is in the house, and will not see me!"

"Precisely, monsieur; that is her express command."

"Then I will see her," was the cool, calm answer, as the barrister entered the front door, and made straight to the little parlour.

Sounds of laughter were heard within-laughter from the lips of Natalie, chorused by the gruff voice of a gentleman, who seemed delighted by the exuberance of the faëry creature before him. Lord Montcastel had thrown his dice, and had beenindeed, was being-rewarded by the delight of the young creature whom he had promised to make his bride, and who held in her hand that promise, drawn up in a legal form. Natalie had just been mimicking the young men of the day, and assuring her lover-as other syrens have done before now, and will do again—that a good, sensible, middle-aged husband was the one to be chosen; and that the fops, beaux, and bloods of the day were not worth looking upon. In short, she was playing a fantasia upon that tune which is a favourite withi middle-aged gentlemen, and which asserts with philosophic boldness that it is "better to be an old man's darling than a young man's slave," when the door opened, and Edgar Wade stood before the pair. As the landscape seldom looks so beautiful as when we behold it for the last time, and as the treasure's worth somehow forces itself upon our minds just as we are about to lose it, so Mdlle. Fifine never looked so lovely to Edgar Wade as when he was about to lose her. His voice was deep with emotion as he stretched his arms towards her, and said

"Natalie!"

She turned round to him, almost angry, but still brilliant and excited; and then, suddenly, she fled to Lord Montcastel,

as if to beg his protection, and whispered an assurance that this was one of the admirers that she had discarded for his lordship's sake. Whatever one may say about Fortune, she is a powerful goddess. It was Edgar's fate that whatever he did at this time should be undertaken at the worst possible occasion. He could not have come at a better hour or moment for Natalie-nor for his lordship.

"Who is this?" he asked, gently pushing aside the lady, and standing between her and the barrister.

"It is Monsieur Edgar Wade,” she whispered-" one of them of whom I spoke. He is an avocât."

The Earl bowed stiffly towards the intruder, and asked what he wanted.

"I wish," said Edgar, humbly enough-though he naturally felt that he should have liked to throttle his opponent-" to speak a few words to that lady, and alone."

The Earl looked at Natalie, who shook her head and whispered

"I cannot see him. I do not wish to speak to him. I have given orders that he was not to be admitted."

"You cannot do so, sir," said Lord Montcastel, acting as interpreter. "You see that your presence disturbs her. Anything you have to say must be said through me."

Edgar looked round the gaily furnished room, which his money had helped to make so bright and pleasant, and answered

"I recognise you, my lord. I have met you before-once before, at the Opera. Might I ask by what right you interpose between us?"

"That is soon answered," said Montcastel, coarsely, as if dealing with an inferior. "You are learned in the law, by profession, I hear. I claim a legal right. This lady is, or will be soon, my wife!"

The blow struck. Mr Wade was for a moment dumb. At last he managed to speak.

"Is it so?" he cried. Natalie. Can it be so?

"Let me hear it from the lips of Tell me."

"Milord speaks truly, and of good faith," she said, taking the Earl's arm, and looking proudly up to him. "I told your friend so, whom you sent-an old gentleman "-and here, by