'Then, go and strain thy genius to its utmost,' exclaimed the liberal stranger, as he placed gold in the bewildered Zampieri's hand, and then, opening a side door that led into the dwelling of Agostino, he was gone.

The great academy of Bologna never looked gayer nor brighter than on the day of trial; for all the painters, and critics, and amateurs, and folks who had pretensions to taste, were there. The young men in their gayest doublets and richest cloaks gathered in groups and discussed every thing but the competition, although they cast their eyes ever and anon towards the wall where hung the rival pictures in their elegant frames. Old gentlemen, who had been to Rome and Venice, gave a few supercilious squints at the exhibition; and young ladies, who were great in pencil-sketches and portfolios, were most severe in their judgments. Virtuosi and amateurs made a plentiful use of technicalities, and spoke highly of sciaro-scuro, perspective, breadth, and effect, in a way that did not seem to have much effect upon the senses of their hearers; while Jacopo Maer, the carver and gilder, was disgusted with that presumptuous picture that hung beside its fellows without a frame.

Domenic Zampieri sat alone that day in the vestibule of the gallery where Calvart had first protected him, and his eyes became suffused with tears, as he sadly reviewed the years that had flown since then. Subject to those gloomy forebodings incidental to a timid nature and sensitive soul, nursed in neglect and poverty, even the bustle, gaiety, and hope of the competition, could not now arouse him nor elicit a smile. Crushed in spirit and dissatisfied, he sat and gazed vacantly at the visiters as they passed in to the competition, of which Annibal himself was to be the judge, and seemed to take no interest in what was taking place within.

Ah! there he is—there he is,' said Pietro Colloni, seizing Lanfranco by the arm, and dragging him forward to the spot where the eccentric brother of Agostino now appeared amongst a knot of friends, rolling his dark eyes over the paintings which hung before him, while not a motion and scarcely a breath was heard in the now interested and expectant throng.

There hung the martyrdom of San Sebastian painful to look upon as life. There a St Christopher bold and magnificent as that of Caravaggio. Side by side with the raising of Lazarus was the Apostle of the Gentiles preaching at Athens; and above the frameless picture of the Holy Family was the widow's son of Nain. A delighted expression danced in the bright enthusiastic eyes of the bold and impetuous Annibal, as he looked at the splendid manifestations of genius that now hung before him, and gave such promise of future glory to his native city. Then, suddenly stepping from the midst of his friends, he took the sealed billets from the picture without a frame, and its companion one, and shouted out in loud and abrupt tones the names of Denis Calvart and Domenic Zampieri.

The cobbler's son of the Strada Valambrosa!' cried some in amazement, and not a few in hatred and despite. Who would have thought it?'

'Yes, the cobbler's son of the Strada Valambrosa,' said Agostino, as he led the pale and trembling Domenichino and the blushing Calvart towards his gifted brother. I congratulate you, Annibal, for these youths have generous hearts as well as genius.'

Genius and generosity are twin sentiments,' said Annibal, in deep rapid tones, in which Domenic recognised the voice of the generous stranger who had enabled him to compete by his timely bounty.

Viva Domenichino-Viva Annibal Caracci!' cried the crowd, smitten with a sudden impulse of generosity, as they beheld the great painter embracing the poor despised cobbler's son, and heard him declare him to be one of the brightest stars in the future of Italy's fame.

In the church of St Jerome at Rome is a splendid altarpiece representing the communion of that saint. Nicolas ¦ Poussin declared it to be one of the three best pictures in the capital of art. It is the work of Domenichino, the poor cobbler's son.

GERMAN ATHEISM AND FRENCH SOCIALISM.

SECOND ARTICLE.

It would have been scarcely consistent with the last emanation of the Young Hegelien school, That every man is to himself a god,' if Proudhon and Grün had been exactly one in the development of their ideas. To preserve intact the originality of the proposition of the German, it seemed necessary that the Frenchman should surpass bim in the originality and brutality of his blasphemies. Proudhon and Grün are the Pluto and Jupiter of their own proper spheres. They agree in the nature and philosophy of things, but they preserve their own peculiarities, just as if it were to illustrate the individuality.

Proudhon is styled the philosopher of the new moral world, as Louis Blanc is its mechanician. The former sits in his closet, and resolves new laws of metaphysics and of physics, which he applies to universal nature, and from which, with the calmest assurance, he makes his own deductions; the latter is an economist who is content with science, as already interpreted, but who is not content with the conditions that exist in despite of it. There is a wide difference between the speculative and the prac tical socialist in the extent and application of their views. Proudhon's system of economical contradictions extends through all extent; Louis Blanc fixes his eyes on the misery of humanity, and would cure it, he says, 'by an organisation of labour.' We do not know what particular ideas of religion Louis Blanc maintains; it is possible that they may be Christian. Proudhon, however, is an atheist; | and one of the most fearful and defiant in his blasphemies. It is to this philosopher, Proudhon, more than to the practical Blanc, that we have to direct our eyes. The suffrages of humanity will, in future, deal with the propositions of the latter, as these suffrages have governed the external world hitherto. They may be advanced, and may occupy the minds of the Platonists in and through all time; but if society does not want them, she will not have them, and if, on the other hand, she finds that she requires them, the declamations of political economists will not prevent her from adopting them. Against the sophisms of Proudhon, however, the soul of man rises up in repulsive disgust. Universal nature cries aloud against the blasphemies of this man, and the voice of humanity, distracted though it be, utters a deep amen.

Five

M. Proudhon resides in the Rue Mazarine, at which domicile M. Grün visited him. He describes him thus: When I entered the chamber of Proudhon, I bebeld a man of large form and nervous temperament, about thirty years of age, with his body clad in a linen under-vest, and his feet in wooden shoes. His study contained a bed, a few books upon shelves; upon his table some numbers of the National,' together with several parts of a politico-economical review. This was his room's furniture. minutes had not passed before we were engaged in the most cordial interchange of ideas, and the dialogue glided on so openly and briskly, that I had scarcely time to think how much I had been mistaken in my imagination regarding the foeman of Rousseau and of Louis Boerne, whom I had here found. Proudhon has an open countenance ; a brow marvellously plastic; his brown eyes are extremely fine; the lower part of his figure is a little massive; but altogether, his form and features harmonised into a whole in keeping with the strength and majesty of his mind. His pronunciation was energetic, full, and pleasantly rustic, especially when compared with the gracious chirping of Paris. His language was close and concise, with a choice of expressions of mathematical correctness. His heart was full of calmness, of assurance, and at the same time of gaiety; in a word, he was a man excellent and fearless against a world.' His panegyrist, after expressing

Community is a necessity in social economics, and viewed from the present is apparent justice,' says Proudhon. According to the Hegelien blasphemy man is individually his own god, can do no wrong, is irresponsible. According to Proudhon's philosophy, everything that man attempts is towards the good, springs from the good in him, and is only frustrated by an opposing inert power, which he terms God, in order that he may be understood. And so between the German atheism or pantheism, and the socialism of Proudhon, all eternal principles are destroyed; virtue and vice, duty and licentiousness, good and evil, become mere ideas of the supreme, independent man, or antinomies evolved from the same power and equally respectable.

Thus it is, and thus it has been through all ages. The prestige of egotism, the arrogance of humanity, deplored by the prophets of old, and mourned over by the saints of to-day, will pass in pride over the imperishable instruments of goodness and virtue, furnished to humanity in the Gospel of God, and will create for itself a vain system in which it becomes tangled and lost. Vain and presumptuous finite being, canst thou by searching find out the infinite? You can not, the seal has been set upon your being and power. But God in his infinite mercy has revealed to us his perfect moral will, and has commanded us to make that will our law. We, being perverse and evil, have not accepted his will. We have rejected the good, and have accepted the evil with our eyes open. Man by the fall of Adam became corrupt, and dissociated from God. 'The word became flesh and dwelt among us,' in order to reconcile man once more to God. Here we have thesis and antithesis of which God the Father is the unity or superior synthesis. As a philosophical proposition the dogma of Christianity is simple, consistent, and perfect, while the syllogistic propositions of these atheistical schools are contradictory. As a vital, active faith, Christianity is imperishable as virtue, and invulnerable; the syllogisms of Proudhon, like all those of his independent predecessors, shall pass away as the moanings of the hurricane. Look, ye distracted sceptics, at the rich and beautiful, who go down into the dark homes of the poor to minister to and to pray with them! These are they, who, inspired by the love of God, and full of gratitude to Christ for the imperishable gifts of redemption, are compelled, by a sense of duty, to do good to all men. The independent egotistical prescription of men has created wo, and want, and misery, which they in vain seek to repress by punitive forces; but an Elizabeth Fry, filled with the true faith, goes down into the dens of crime, armed with the love of God, and, lo, religious laws, administered with religious earnestness, bring tears from the heart which vicious human laws could only harden.

, lit le do they know the evil they do who passively accept Christianity, and rolling themselves in the sacerdotal garments, step aside from the bleeding body of humanity, which, having fallen among thieves, lies prostrate in their path. Wide are the arms of our holy religion, and warm and glowing is its heart; it has vineyards for those who stand idle in the market-place, and it will not begrudge the labourer his hire; it has a platform of inviolability for freedom and man, not because of himself, but through the mercy and goodness of God; it has an eye for the poor self-debased inebriate, and for the weeping slave; it has bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, drink to the parched throat; and, above all, it has eternal felicity and glory for him, who, worshipping God in spirit and in truth, loves his neighbour as himself. The world shall be regenerated, but it can only be through a divine morality, the fruits of a divine religion.

MODES OF ELEPHANT HUNTING. THE elephant is the largest of living animals, and appears, from his huge stature and vast strength, to be capable of defying all the efforts of man for his subjugation. Yet this creature, so powerful and so sagacious, was, almost from time immemorial, taken from its native wilds, and

subjected to human dominion. Perhaps the first Europeans who ever saw this animal were the Greeks who marched into India with Alexander, and brought accounts of its nature and mode of capture to their countrymen, which Arrian, a historian of the second century, has transmitted to us in an embodied form. This creature was scarcely known to the Romans during the republic; and when Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, sought to impress Fabricius with a full sense of his power, one of these magnificent creatures was suddenly presented to the apparently unmoved but really wonderstruck Roman. As the dominion of Rome extended, and the brutalities of the empire were exhibited in the amphitheatre, the elephant, the lion, and even the stately giraffe, were brought from India to yield to the depraved appetites of the luxurious spectacle-loving Romans. Commodus, who, in his character, was the most beastly of men, esteemed it an imperial privilege to slay this great creature, and would have considered any man a contemner of his royal dignity who had drawn bis sword against an elephant in the Colosseum.

These huge animals were much esteemed objects in the train of Indian princes, and they were also proudly exhibited to the Romans, to whose city they were sometimes brought from India in the trains of triumphant conquerors.

The ancient Indian elephant-hunters having found a piece of level ground open to the sun, dug a great circular ditch round it, about thirty feet deep and twenty-four feet wide, the earth of the excavation being piled up on either side of it as a well. One entrance only was left into the enclosure; and this was by an arched bridge covered with earth, grass, and other herbs, over which several tame females were led, and left to graze in the circle, while the hunters hid themselves in caves which they had formed in the outer walls, and watched the wild elephants from apertures left for that purpose. The elephants, anciently as now, never approached inhabited places during the daytime, but at night they roamed about, and, having reached these enclosures, they were soon attracted by the females, and rushed into the circle. As soon as the hunters observed them to have entered they took down the bridge, and thus left them securely confined in their prison, where, finding neither food nor water, they soon became weakened and dispirited. When the hunters supposed them to be sufficiently brought down by hunger, they mounted their tame elephants, put up the bridge, and, entering the enclosure, led the animals which they rode against those which they sought to capture. A fierce contest ensued, in which the wild animals were always worsted, and then the hunters, slipping from the backs of the tame ones, tied their feet while they were exhausted by the struggle. Having secured their feet, they then caused the tame elephants to beat them with their trunks until they sunk down. The next process was to put ropes round their necks, and to mount them as they lay upon the ground, and this was effected in a very cruel way. An incision was made all round the neck of the captive quadru ped, into which was inserted a rope, and the rider holding this kept himself fixed on the back of the huge animal, and, as the ligature galled him, he thus prevented him from working any mischief. The pain and a sense of compulsion soon reduced the starved creatures to submission, and, being tied to tame ones by ropes, they were led away in triumph to the villages, where the people offered them green reeds and grass to eat, and sought to cheer them by singing songs, clashing cymbals, and beating drums.

In this ancient mode of catching elephants, tame ones were made the instruments of decoying the wild ones, and in modern times they are made even more effective agents to the same end. During the times of Alexander and Darius this treacherous brute was the means of subjugation to its own species; and at this day it manifests even an anxiety to subdue its wild brethren to the dominion of creation's earthly sovereign man.

Elephants are gregarious in their habits; yet, from some circumstance unknown to naturalists, individual males are often found in a state of monachism. The Indians suppose that there are two species-those which are

gregarious, and harmless in their dispositions, and those which live a life of individuality, and are very ferocious. This duality of species is supposed to be a fallacy; those which feed in herds being the females and young, and those which roam about alone being those full-grown males whose great tusks make them objects of the hunter's especial notice, and of the hatred and jealousy of the other males, by whom they are driven from the herd. They are the finest elephants, and are followed by the hunters with indefatigable zeal. By day and night they keep cautiously on their track with three or four trained females, called 'koomkies,' who are to decoy and bind him to captivity. If it be dark, they hear the wild elephant striking his foot against his fore-legs in order to clean it, and then they approach very near to him; in the day-time they are more cautious in their advances. The traitor'koomkies' approach the wild goondah' in the most careless complacent manner, and they soon discover whether he is likely to be entrapped by their arts. If, when they press round him, he submits himself to their caresses, his capture is almost certain, for, during the period when he abandons himself to the seductions of pleasure, the hunters glide cautiously under him, and fasten his fore-legs with a strong rope, while the wily females not only divert his attention, but assist with their trunks to fasten the cords that bind him. His hind-legs being also secured in this manner, he is left by the hunters, and then by the females which have entrapped him. If there is a large tree at hand, he is fastened to it immediately; if not, his feet are only tied together, and he is abandoned to a sense of his ignominious condition, of which he soon becomes cognisant. When the 'koomkies' forsake him, he quickly discovers the shackles that bind him, and seeks to retreat to a covert in the forest, but his movements are completely impeded, and long ropes, attached to that which binds him, and fixed to a tree, soon stop his progress. He now becomes infuriated, and throwing himself upon the ground tears it up with his tusks. Should he break the cables that fasten him and escape into the forest, pursuit is never thought of; but if the ropes are strong enough to hold him his fury soon exhausts itself. Hunger is next left to operate upon his strength; and then he is escorted by his treacherous kindred to a station, where he is tamed and sufficiently trained in a few months.

The elephant is an animal that lives upon herbs, and, as may be anticipated, it requires an immense tract of fertile land to sustain the lives of a herd of these huge creatures; they are therefore found in Borneo, Ceylon, and other tropical countries, where the vegetation is most luxuriant; but, strange as it may seem, the body of an elephant was lately found embedded in ice, in Siberia, in a complete state of preservation-the natives cutting in pieces and carrying away the flesh that had been hermetically sealed up and preserved in the ice-block for ages, fresh as when this herb-eating animal had been laid down in its icy bed by some wonderful convulsion and revolution in nature. Fossil bones were found about 1829, in a cave near Wellington, Australia, one of which that celebrated comparative anatomist Cuvier declared to be the thigh-bone of a young elephant; which demonstrates that these huge creatures have also roamed over the plains of Australia.

Elephants were anciently objects of great veneration to the Brahmins; and they are yet esteemed of great account in the islands of Polynesia, a white elephant being regarded as sacred by the Bornese.

It is curious to observe that the modes of catching these creatures have varied so little essentially for two thousand years-a system of decoyment, and a process of hunger and exhaustion, being the media of their subjugation to the will of man. How truly does the mastery of man over this mighty quadruped illustrate the majesty of humanity, and demonstrate bis dominion over the beasts of the field and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth; for not only can he subdue the mighty elephant to his power, but he can bend it to his will, mak

ing it an instrument of his dominance and might, even to the subjugation of its own species!

LIMNINGS OF SOCIAL LIFE.

A ROMANCE IN OUR VILLAGE.

CHAPTER VI.-FRIENDS, ANONYMOUS AND OTHERWISE.

As the only confidant Patty had, and the one seeming to her of any service in the matter, was Tom Halliday, she, though at first not willing to mention her meeting with Julius Thurling and its results, felt constrained to tell him of it. She told him part, and part Tom guessed. His brow darkened and his hands clenched as he heard of the insult offered her, and he would have sworn then and there to punish the villain, no matter what the cost or hazard, had not Patty soothed him, and advised him first to see Mr Styles, as he perhaps would find a better way of doing it. Tom was calmed, but still indignant; his blood boiled at the thought of the proposal made to Patty; had Julius been within reach, no persuasion or remonstrance would have kept him from thrashing him within an inch of his life. He never paused to think of how he came to possess the ring, or supposed the possibility of mistake. He saw nothing in it but a base conspiracy, originated by Mrs Balbirnie and Thurling, to ruin Patty; and the punishment of Thurling was the only remedy conceivable by him. To his proposal of accomplishing this, by going up to the Hall and taking the hopeful son in hand, which he unfolded to Mr Styles, that gentleman gave a decided negative. The lawyer was much surprised at the turn matters were taking, but he viewed it in a different light from Tom altogether.

'See,' said he, here's a note I got to-night, by the help of which I hope to get at the bottom of the mystery.' He lifted a scrap of whitey brown paper, ruled with deep pencil lines, and containing the following questionable orthographical contents:-'Sir, i noes something of a Ring, of which Paty primros has ben brot to trubble, an if what i ixpicts bes tru, as yu wil best Beleev when yu cum to noe, Yu must examin that bruit of a fello cald bombizeen Briks, who can tel all about it, as Hee had it. Yore obeedt Servt, A frend. to Mr Stiles, Esquire, Writter.'

'That came anonymously to-night,' said Mr Robert Styles. I understand from it that Bombazine Breeks has had some hand in the matter. He must have been bribed by Thurling to steal the ring for purposes too obvious. Our best plan is to get this chap first, and see what he knows; we can think of the other afterwards.' 'I know his mother's house,' said Tom. 'It is a little out of the town, and I am sure to get him there. I will bring him down to you by the neck, the vagabond.'

Oh, no, no, my good sir; that's not the way to bring him down. He would be certain not to come. Here, Billy!' He shouted a stout pawky-looking clerk out of another room. Run up for Bombazine Breeks. Somebody wants a guide to the Hall, or other excuse, will do. You understand?'

The clerk perfectly understood, and departed. He was gone about half-an-hour; then returned, bringing the luckless Breeks along with him, whom he ushered into Mr Styles's room.

Whaur's the gentleman, sir?' said he, touching the rim of his hair. Breeks knew nothing of the train of evils accompanying the loss of the ring, so his mind was quite easy on that point.

Sit down a minute,' replied Styles. I want to speak to you first. Have you seen Thurling-young Mr Thurling lately?'

Ay, it wasna lang since-within the feck o' eight days maybe.'

Oh, it was not to-day, then, you gave him the ring?' 'What ring?' inquired Breeks, in some amazement. The emerald ring-ring with a green stone in it.' 'Feint a ring I ever gied him,' said the half-witted, with the utmost stolidity of visage. He felt something was wrong, and determined to brave it out.

'It's strange how he should mistake the person. You've no brother, have you, Breeks?' inquired Styles, meditatively, looking hard at a letter, and reading fellow called Bombazine Breeks.'

It's verra strange. I ne'er gied him a ring,' continued the other, with a queer expression of countenance, as if sifting the lawyer's purpose.

It does not matter for that. You had the ring; now, tell me what you did with it.'

Wi't, sir? Toot, toot, I did naething wi't. It's a' a mistak',' replied Breeks, with the most complete nonchalance.

Styles glanced at him. He knew better than believe this, however. He pursued angrily- Don't tell more lies.' 'I'm tellin' nae lees, sir, sure's death.'

'Now, sir, you stole that ring-you've done something with it. Unless you confess all about it, and why you gave it to Mr Thurling, I'll have you hung-hung by the neck till you're dead, for a thief.' Breeks shook at the dire contemplation. He had not viewed it in this light.

Billy!' shouted Styles, go down for the policeman.' 'Oh, sir, it's a mistak! I'm innocent-innocent,' said the unfortunate.

·

Hung by the neck till dead-a warning to all future thieves,' pursued Styles, threateningly. You wont steal any more rings, my fine fellow, I assure you.' 'Man, I didna steal't, man.'

'I don't care; l'll have you hung. The policeman will be here directly.'

Breeks was now thoroughly alarmed. Oh, Mr Styles, hae some pity! I'll tell ye a' about it.'

'Go on, then. Mind, I'll know from this if you tell me a word of a lie; and if you do, the judge, with the black cap on, will sentence you without mercy.' Styles lifted up a paper, as if to check any flaw in Breeks's statement, while the latter proceeded to narrate how on the eventful day beginning this narrative he had been walking through the village, had been chaffing at lazy corner, had looked up at Mrs Balbirnie's as he left; that he saw the window open, and Dicky' the tame daw on the sill; how Dicky came down at his call, and dropped the ring at his feet; how he had kept it, in the view of presenting it to the cook at the Hall; but how Julius Thurling had made himself master of it. Bating the five shillings received for the article, Breeks told the facts as circumstantially and correctly as he could. When done, Styles said, 'Now, mind, I don't believe above half of that, and unless you come here tomorrow at ten o'clock, and tell me it over again, that I may see whether it's true, I'll have you hung yet.'

'I'll tell't a score o' times if ye dinna gie's to the polis,' said Bombazine, beseechingly.

Mind you come here then,' said Styles. Now, go.' The knave hastily shuffled out of the room, glad of escape, and glad, when he got to the door, that the policeman did not plunge a hand on his collar, and drag him off to execution.

་

'So far all's well-better than could be expected. The next point is to get at Thurling. How can that be managed? I have it. He said he'd meet Patty to-night, didn't he?' Tom assented, in hope of an opportunity then of thrashing him.

Well, Patty must keep the appointment.

Must what?' said Tom, in amazement. 'Keep the appointment,' pursued the attorney, gravely. If you wish to convict Thurling of his baseness, and effectually clear her character, she must go. Stop a little; don't look so angry. My lad Billy must go too. You can easily conceal yourselves. Get Patty to introduce the subject of the ring, ask to see it. You can take it and keep it-only use no violence, remember, and leave the rest to

me.

'I don't half like that plan,' said Tom.

Neither do I; but it's the best we can fall on just now. Put yourself in the way of Patty, and explain it all to her. She'll see how to manage it. There, now, go, like a good fellow.'

It was with a cheerful heart Tom Halliday went whistling

home that night, and eke a glad spirit had Patty Primrose, Something told her that she should triumph over her disgrace yet; a consciousness of deliverance at hand filled her eyes with tears; and perhaps, too, a sense of grateful regard to Tom Halliday brightened her smile, and called a blush of colour to her cheek as he bade her good-night.

CHAPTER VII., AND LAST.

Like most people who act rashly under the impulse of hasty anger, Mrs Balbirnie had sorely repented of her conduct to Patty ere this. She would have given anything to have proceedings withdrawn against her, but this she could not do. A consciousness haunted her of the poor girl's innocence; indeed, she felt assured of it. Everything she knew of Patty-her candour, honesty, and carefulness, and her hitherto irreproachable character, confirmed this view. It was true she could not account for the still-missing ring, or form any plausible reason for its disappearance otherwise than through Patty; but that idea was now become so insupportably untrue, that she was fain to leave all conjecture at rest. The spectre helpmeet she would have disdained, even in the most dreadful exigency, to consult or advise with on the subject-she despised him too heartily for that—and was therefore compelled to resort again to the worthy Mrs Cleek. From her, however, she found but little sympathy in her repentance; for that lady would have regretted above all things to believe in Patty's innocence. A little opposition was only needed to kindle up the lambent flame in Mrs Balbirnie's glowing bosom, and as Mrs Cleek chose to dispute the probability of Patty's guilt, her first accuser became all the more determined in opposing it, till words waxed so fierce betwixt them. that the warm hostess called Grizzy an auld fule-a stupid auld fule,' and Grizzy in return accused the other of being 'an ill-natured vixen-a verra tyrant in her ain hoose an' oot o't.' The result of this was that they dissolved company for ever, and perpetually disavowed each other-Mrs Balbirnie coming home to spoil the broth for the navies' dinners, and Mrs Cleek going inwards to take each of the olives out of the coops, box their ears soundly to make them cry, and box them to produce quiet, and return them to their confinement again.

The morning of the trial drew on, however, without Mrs Balbirnie arriving at any satisfactory opinion in the matter, when it behoved her to dress herself in her Sunday gown and go to the court-hall, which she did in a very bit ter frame of mind. When she arrived there, she found the hall crowded with all lazy corner, and whoever else had nothing to do and curiosity to impel them thither. Patty was there too, pale still, and trembling. Tom Halliday sat a little way off, and near him Mr Styles in confabulation. A brisk lively air pervaded Styles that morning, and a meaning smile hovered perpetually about his features, the foreshadowing of something good to come. Old Thurling and another justice were on the bench, the clerk read over the complaint, witnesses were ordered to retire, and the fiscal led the evidence against Patty. It consisted simply of the statement of Mrs Balbirnie regarding the ring being left by her in the parlour, on a little table near the window. Patty alone was in the room. She had not left long, not above ten minutes, when Mrs Balbirnie entered it in search of the article, and found it missing too, The next witness was a little girl-a witness obtained by considerable exertion on the part of the public prosecutorin whose mother's house Patty had been shortly after leav ing Mrs Balbirnie. This girl stated that Patty had, on drawing out her pocket-handkerchief, pulled something along with it, which fell upon the floor, and rolled a little bit. Witness saw it to be a ring-thought it had a stone of a dark hue in it. Patty stooped, and, with a very red face, lifted it, and put it in her bosom. Witness was cer tain the article that fell was a ring; should know one from a button, she thought, in answer to an inquiry by Mr Styles; could not be certain if the stone of dark colour was green; didn't get time to examine it.

Mr Styles whispered a few words to Patty, inquiring if such had been the case. Patty said it was, and drawing