He would brood over his bad purposes for such a dreary length of time, that it might have been expected, some solitary check of conscience must have intervened to save him from commission. But that Light from Heaven was extinct in his dark bosom.

Nothing that is great, nothing that is amiable, existed for this unhappy man. He feared, he envied, he suspected; but he never loved. The sublime and beautiful in nature, the excellent and becoming in morals, were things placed beyond the capacity of his sensations. He loved not poetry-nor ever took a lonely walk to meditate-never beheld virtue, which he did not try to disbelieve, or female beauty and innocence, which he did not lust to contaminate.

A sneer was perpetually upon his face, and malice grinning at his heart. He would say the most ill-natured things, with the least remorse, of any man I ever knew. This gained him the reputation of a wit-other traits got him the reputation of a villain.

And this man formerly paid his court to Elinor Clare!-with what success I leave my readers to determine.-It was not in Elinor's

nature to despise any living thing-but in the estimation of this man, to be rejected was to be despised-and Matravis never forgave.

He had long turned his eyes upon Rosamund Gray. To steal from the bosom of her friends the jewel they prized so much, the little ewe lamb they held so dear, was a scheme of delicate revenge, and Matravis had a two-fold motive for accomplishing this young maid's ruin.

Often had he met her in her favorite solitudes, but found her ever cold and inaccessible. Of late the girl had avoided straying far from her own home, in the fear of meeting him -but she had never told her fears to Allan.

Matravis had, till now, been content to be a villain within the limits of the law-but, on the present occasion, hot fumes of wine, co-operating with his deep desire of revenge, and the insolence of an unhoped for meeting, overcame his customary prudence, and Matravis rose, at once, to an audacity of glorious mischief.

Late at night he met her, a lonely, unprotected, virgin-no friend at hand- no place (near of refuge.

Rosamund Gray, my soul is exceeding sor

rowful for thee-I loath to tell the hateful circumstances of thy wrongs. Night and silence were the only witnesses of this young maid's disgrace-Matravis fled.

Rosamund, polluted and disgraced, wandered, an abandoned thing, about the fields and meadows till day-break. Not caring to return to the cottage, she sat herself down before the gate of Miss Clare's house-in a stupor of grief.

Elinor was just rising, and had opened the windows of her chamber, when she perceived her desolate young friend.-She ran to embrace her-she brought her into the house-she took her to her bosom- she kissed her-she spake to her; but Rosamund could not speak.

Tidings came from the cottage. Margaret's death was an event, which could not be kept concealed from Rosamund. When the sweet maid heard of it, she languished, and fell sick -she never held up her head after that time.

If Rosamund had been a sister, she could not have been kindlier treated, than by her two friends.

Allan had prospects in life-might, in time, have married into any of the first families in Hertfordshire-but Rosamund Gray, humbled

though she was, and put to shame, had yet a charm for him-and he would have been content to share his fortunes with her yet, if Rosamund would have lived to be his companion.

But this was not to be-and the girl soon after died. She expired in the arms of Elinor -quiet, gentle, as she lived-thankful, that she died not among strangers-and expressing by signs, rather than words, a gratitude for the most trifling services, the common offices of humanity. She died uncomplaining; and this young maid, this untaught Rosamund, might have given a lesson to the grave philosopher in death.

CHAPTER X.

I WAS but a boy when these events took place. All the village remember the story, and tell of Rosamund Gray, and old blind Margaret.

I parted from Allan Clare on that disastrous night, and set out for Edinburgh the next morning, before the facts were commonly known— I heard not of them-and it was four months before I received a letter from Allan.

"His heart" he told me 66 was gone from him --for his sister had died of a phrensy fever!"not a word of Rosamund in the letter-I was left to collect her story from sources which may one day be explained.

I soon after quitted Scotland, on the death of my father, and returned to my native village. Allan had left the place, and I could gain no information, whether he were dead or living.

I passed the cottage. I did not dare to look that way, or to enquire who lived there.-A little dog, that had been Rosamund's, was yelping in my path. I laughed aloud like one mad,