acquainted with the character of poor Albert Delamere that you have witnessed the peculiar trials of his life, do you feel any sentiment of a harsh or unkind nature towards that unhappy man? Can you reflect on his devotedness, and pronounce upon his failings, with any other award than that of compassion? Do you not feel compassion for his filial love, for his blasted affections, for his magnificent and wasted talents; above all, for his fearful state of unbelief? He is our fellow-creature; he still lives amongst us; he is bowed down by sorrow ;-who would refuse to pity him?

Lord and Lady Fitzarlington enjoy a modified happiness such as this world affords. Blessed they can scarcely be called, for their early years were passed in sorrow, and the cloud still rested on them; but in each other's sober enduring affection, with the smiles of their children and the blessing of their dependants, life is to them a pleasant waiting-place for death.

Poor Lord Altamont! those who have spent the gifts of a long life as he spent them, cannot expect to reap the harvest of honoured old age he is childless, and uncared-for save by the devoted Ethel, who tends him with all

the zeal and affection which such a nature as hers could alone feel for such an object. But Lord Altamont has paid the price of his past errors: he has felt the full weight of remorse; he has wept for his former sins; he has, by the blessing of God and the endeavours of his niece, sought for pardon; and though the offering of his broken and contrite spirit is made when his senses are obscured and his body is frail, still let us hope he will find mercy, and be of those who are forgiven.

Does the reader not wish to know of Mr. Starley the astrologer,-he who bade Lady Elizabeth Delamere remember the fable of the Dog and the Shadow? He who could so well foretell the fate of others, ought to have some pen to chronicle his own. He still enjoys the same spirit of felicity independent of outward circumstances; his art does not yield him less pleasure; the stars still reveal their mysteries to him; his daily bread is sweet, because it is not the bread of idleness.

"Toil sweetens pleasure, pleasure lightens toil—

Such is th' alternate doom of this world's coil."

The tide of his life flows on in the same channel; he has lost no tie; he lives under the

same roof; the same greasy book is his companion; the same moral atmosphere surrounds his sunny existence. He who was the poorest and the humblest individual in the gay circles with which he occasionally associated, on him Providence has bestowed most happiness, for he can say with truth,

"My mind to ine a kingdom is."

And of Levy the Jew ?-He passed into foreign parts, and there died. The prejudices that he entertained for anybody who favoured his own people caused him to leave his wealth to Mr. Delamere. Riches flow towards riches; who has not observed this? It seems as if gold had sympathy with gold. Riches flee past the poor man's gate, and enter in at the door of the wealthy. How constantly does an opulent man receive an enormous addition to his substance, whilst the poor remain always poor! Thus it seemed in Mr. Delamere's case when he received the vast sum of Levy's hoarded gold: he was a rich man, and still more was given him-him to whom it was all valueless.

How many of those who spend their very life-blood in toiling for the bread they eat

would a portion of the miser's treasure have made happy, and it was denied them! This and such like circumstances are stumblingblocks to faith; they make even the best of us wonder at the unequal manner in which fortune is lavished on some, and niggardly held back from others more worthy, in our sight, than those on whom the clouds drop fatness but we do not see the end. One thing is certain; all undue devotion to our fellowcreatures meets with disappointment; but devotion to duty and principle, is never disappointed of its hope.

THE END.

LONDON:

PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEY,

Dorset Street, Fleet Street.