She survived, the most guilty of the threeif Robert Perreau was guilty at all—she survived to boast of her acuteness and adroitness -survived to remark exultingly, as she frequently did afterwards, that she "had carried her point: and hanged the Perreaus !" And to one of these men (Daniel), in what relation had she stood?.

What misplaced affection, kindness, and indulgence had been lavished upon her! What in the shape of luxury had she been denied? What in the guise of extravagance had she been barred from? How had she been cherished, fondled, idolised!

In return she hangs her benefactor!

What marvel! Is it likely that she who has renounced all allegiance to a Heavenly Master should be true or faithful to any earthly relationship?

Oh, there is a lesson-a common, trite, stale, but needful lesson, to be learned from this history. On a vicious connexion sooner or later lights a desolating curse. Nought, save sorrow and ignominy, can result from it. It brings the frown of Heaven in and upon that family where it is tolerated or connived at.

Credit any fallacy, young man! Believe any impossibility. Persuade yourself, if you can, that evil companionship cannot corrupt; that pestilence cannot kill; that extravagance will not beggar; that excess promotes health; that idleness leads to fame; but of this be sure, that an unhallowed and licentious attachment inevitably and invariably entails sorrow and shame, remorse and tears.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE SON AND THE MOTHER.

A Worcester Tragedy. 7

"The covering of sin is like keeping a serpent warm which will sting the more fiercely." HALIBURTON.

THERE are few natures, hardened as they may be, which do not bear in grateful recollection a mother's tenderness and a mother's love.

However degraded in the scale of society— however steeled against kindly and gentle impressions-however callous the oft-repeated maxims of depraved associates may have rendered him—still the simple word "mother" has been known to rouse in the most reckless a train of feelings attesting one and all that the appetites of the brute have not wholly mastered the affections of the man.

Where a contrary result has been arrived at the temptation has, generally speaking, been gold. Of this the following is an instance :

During the year 1707, two most atrocious murders were perpetrated in Worcestershire; the first, at the house of Mrs. Ann Cormel, of Bradforton, near Evesham, when the premises were fired to conceal the crime. The second, at Upton Snodsbury, four miles from Worcester, where Mrs. Palmer and her maid were murdered, and the house burnt, with a similar intention. The fire at Mrs. Cormel's was at first supposed to be accidental; and if the murder of Mrs. Palmer and her maid had not been discovered, public suspicion might never have been aroused. A neighbour of the illfated lady while in bed on the night of Friday, Nov. 7, 1707, twice heard the shrieks of a party in distress; on rising she saw flames; and calling assistance, succeeded in taking out Mrs. Palmer's body, but the house fell in before they could rescue that of her unfortunate servant. The mutilated appearance presented by the corpse, showed immediately, that a most barbarous murder had been committed. A messenger was immediately dispatched to Mr. Palmer, her son, then living at Libery, half-amile distant; Palmer came to Upton, but could not be persuaded even to look at his mother's

remains; showing at the same time so little filial tenderness, that he diverted himself by making some boys scramble for a few farthings found on the person of the deceased. After the funeral, the son appeared very restless and uneasy, but took slight pains to discover the perpetrators of the deed. His strange conduct excited suspicions, which were not lessened by the remembrance of his previous unnatural hatred to his mother, and by expressions which it was well recollected that truly unfortunate woman had used.

Repeatedly had she complained to her neighbours of her son's bitter animosity towards her, and had said that she "feared he would murder her."

After the event he was more than once charged by some neighbours with having a guilty knowledge of the transaction, but this did not stimulate his endeavours to clear up the mystery, nor did he offer a reward for that purpose, though he had an advertisement drawn up to be inserted in the Gazette, which advertisement he kept by him. Matters remained in this state until Nov. 20th, when Giles Hunt was apprehended, under very peculiar circumstances,