go fighting with a tramp, that's what I finds fault with. But she's low, sir,-low-very low.' If you plaise, mum," said John, stopping abruptly short in his story, "there's a-gen'lm'n, I s'pose he calls hisselfdown a waitin' for to see you."

"A gentleman waiting to see me?" said Mrs. Tremayne; “why didn't you say so before ?"

“Why, you know, missus, I couldn't hinterrupt you in the middle of what you was saying. But, Lor! tes no odds for he-he's nothing at all. I can see that with half an eye."

"But where did you leave him?-and why didn't you ask for his card?"

"Consarning of where I left him, mum, I left him in the lobby; and respecting of his card, I did ask 'un for it, but a said a hadn't got none wi' 'un. However, he tould me to say that his name was John Prester, and that he was just come from Amerikay."

"Wha-a-t!" screamed the old lady, starting up. "John Prester, did you say, from America? My dear, dear Emily, can it be? Oh dear, whatever shall we do?"

"Why, aunt," said Emily, "do you think it possible it can be the person we were speaking of? Did he say anything else, John ?"

"Nothing else, miss," replied John, who had been opening his eyes wide at seeing his mistress so much startled," nothing else, but that missus might perhaps guess who he was."

"It is he, Emily; it is he, I know it is. I feel as if I were going to see a ghost; my thoughts of him lately have been sent as a warning. I see it all now. John, give me a glass of wine-port wine, John-the small decanter on the right hand side. That's it-oh dear, oh dear!"

THE ELOPEMENT.

BY MRS. EDWARD THOMAS.

I.

Oh! is it joy or sorrow, hope or fear,

Awakes this tremor in my timid breast?
I must commune in secret. Come not near,
Aught that my solemn musings may molest.
He wedded and unwedded-ecstasy!

The scroll of Fate is then, at last, revealed,
Which hid from Love a deeper mystery
Than ever Sphinx from Edipus concealed!

"My dear Emily, have you seen this?" exclaimed Mrs. Wentworth to her daughter, as she absolutely started with surprise, whilst glancing over the "Fashionable Intelligence" of a morning paper. "But I need not ask you," she continued; "for, certainly if you had, you never could be preparing the breakfast in such a formal, phlegmatical manner." "I have not yet looked over the paper, mamma; but what does it con

tain to disturb either your equanimity or mine?"
"Why! the elopement of Lady Lindsford."
"Lady Lindsford eloped? Impossible!"

"Nay, so far from its being impossible, it appears a grave and serious matter of fact. But listen whilst I read the astounding announcement: 'We are exceedingly sorry to inform our readers of a faux-pas in high life, which has plunged several members of the aristocracy into considerable distress. The beautiful Lady Lindsford eloped from Park-lane yesterday evening with a gallant son of Mars, the Honourable Frederick Staunton. We understand that the distracted husband left town the instant after the fatal discovery in pursuit of the fair fugitive, with, no doubt, the intention of challenging the base violator of his domestic peace.' There, Emily; a pretty creature she has turned out!"

"How dreadful, mamma! What must be poor Lord Lindsford's feelings at this moment?-what those of his most infatuated wife ere this? Why, she has actually left two children,—one a mere infant; how could she ever bring herself to abandon them?"

"Oh, as for that, I do not believe the thought of their utter helplessness occasioned her an instant's hesitation. You may rely on it, Emily, that when once a married woman has lent a willing ear to the protestations of unhallowed love, the greatest obstacle is overcome; the Rubicon is passed, and all other considerations sink into insignificance with her; it is truly "le premier pas qui coûte;" after she has made that fatal advance beyond the pale of rectitude, she can trample without remorse on all other claims of duty, affection, or morality; nay, like Tullia, drive over the mangled corpse of her father, if it impeded her passage to infamy."

"Oh, mamma! you are judging her too severely. You do not make allowance for the temptations to which she was exposed, the importunities she resisted, the anguish to which she most reluctantly yielded, the threats which, perhaps, intimidated her into compliance."

"All romance and rhodomontade, my dear child; the morbid sympathy of youth for erring beauty. No, Emily, no; she encountered none of these imaginary struggles. There are no ferocious Tarquins in these sober days, 'Dieu soit loué,' to come sword in hand to rifle us of our most precious chastity; no Appiuses to gain their nefarious object by false and fraudulent fabrications. An elopement such as hers is almost a matterof-fact affair; and when she crossed the sanctified threshold of her husband's roof, hand-in-hand with her seducer, she was as most perfectly aware at the moment of her guilty flight that she was for ever barring its doors against her-for ever banning herself with shame and ignominy

as well as if a herald had proclaimed it aloud in the streets through which she sped with such conscious haste. Men, Emily, are easily and effectually repulsed by one word of proper reproof; but, depend upon it, that Frederick Staunton sounded the deepest depths of that shallow and vain mind ere he ventured to hint at the degrading proposal which has met with such signal success."

"Well, mamma, I cannot condemn her in so unqualified a manner; I fancy there must be some mitigating circumstance to palliate such extreme turpitude, could we but know it."

"That is the charitable construction of youth, and only becoming and laudable in you; but I fear little would be gained in her favour could we unravel the whole tissue of the dark and tangled intrigue. There is no doubt but that Lord Lindsford is somewhat to blame in the unfortunate business; he certainly was too indulgent, too incautious; he placed too implicit a faith in the integrity of a very giddy, thoughtless woman;

and, although I pity him for the sad result of his blind confidence, I cannot entirely exonerate him for his credulous reliance."

"Alas! mamma, how little that is saying for the credit of our sex! Is a husband to expect no other reward for confidence and kindness from the wife he so fondly trusts, except ingratitude and infidelity? Are women so naturally base and treacherous? God forbid! or how should I regret being one of such a class!"

"God forbid! say I, too. Happily, the frail creature now under discussion forms the rare and melancholy exception to the bright and spotless nature of woman. Still, I must repeat, that some, even well-disposed women in many respects, are totally and irretrievably ruined by the unreserved belief reposed in them-the women who, like Lady Lindsford, are educated simply for the eye, not the heart. The gaudy insects that expand their gorgeous wings only in the summer region of fashion, and flutter through the radiant season of youth; fed on the roses of adulation, without being once pierced with the sharp thorns of that sterner truth, which, in wounding, also purify the heart they thus so sanatively probe. The women who are never taught that pain and sorrow may be theirs,-old age and decay must be theirs should they survive the present fleeting period of unworthy triumph; that, as wives and mothers, as friends and neighbours, acts of mutual kindness and love, mutual charity and good-will, mutual pity and forbearance, are expected from them to alleviate the pains and penalties of mortal existence. The women, in fact, who, contemplating their own unequalled beauty, consider the charms and graces of person the Alpha and the Omega of human creation; and, to preserve which unimpaired, the whole and sole object of a reasonable creature. I thought, at one time, you might have become Lady Lindsford, Emily."

"Me! mamma! How could you ever imagine so? Lord Lindsford never gave me any real cause to anticipate such an event; he never compromised himself, I can positively assert; mamma never said one word to lead me to such a conclusion."

"No, no, that I grant; he said nothing, I admit, to induce you to conceive that he loved you; but what did he not do, my poor child, to delude you with such a supposition? But thus men too frequently escape the charge of dishonour by a mean subterfuge, and, regardless of the affections they have enthralled, the sensibility they wound, take refuge under the heartless mockery of never having given utterance to one expression which might, even remotely, deceive the foolish girl who mistook common politeness for earnest devotion. But he is righteously punished for his perfidy; and may he feel the full force of the retribution which has now overtaken him."

"Oh, mamma! mamma! how can you be so vindictive? Not for worlds would I have him suffer one pang through me!-not for worlds would I be associated in his mind with one painful or revengeful thought! I never did, indeed I never did, believe he meant anything serious in those attentions."

"Come! come! Emily, I can pardon you for every attempt to screen the man you yet consider faultless; but I cannot pardon your attempt to impose on my judgment. This affected ignorance of Lord Lindsford's motives cannot deceive me-cannot deceive yourself. Confess then, candidly, that you were most grievously hurt and disappointed at his unexpected union with Blanche St. Aubin? I freely own that I was,

and nothing but the dread of adding to your anguish and mortification kept me from openly denouncing him to the world; but your pallid cheek and tearful eye restrained a mother's just indignation, my darling. I wonder whether he thinks at this moment what a different wife he might have had in you?"

"I trust an idea so offensive to delicacy, so revolting to all that is pure and feminine, has never struck Lord Lindsford in the midst of such disgrace and misery."

"It has-I am positive it has-and more than once, even in the short space which has elapsed since the discovery of his wreck of happiness. Your quieter and calmer image would instinctively rise on his memory in contrast to the turbulent and impetuous creature he was then pursuing, striking the bowed-down soul with a stone-like force, an agonising recoil, under the humiliating depression of frustrated hopes and blighted expectations. Yet should he, after obtaining a divorce, offer you his hand, I should grieve to see you accept it."

"How can you allow such improbabilities to gain a moment's ascendancy over your really sound mind, mamma? He offer me his hand! The mere supposition is too incredible, too monstrous to dwell upon, even as an unfounded conjecture. But, were he capable of such an outrage, do you think, mamma, that I am so lost to a proper sense of decorum as to accept it?"

"I fear you might I greatly fear you might; that is, if the poor deserted children were not considered a decided objection by you."

66

They an objection! Oh, no! If any one thing could induce me to listen to their wretched father, it would be pity for them."

"Ah! so you think now-so you believe now-and I give you the fullest credit for the most disinterested generosity of feeling; but, Emily, you are dazzled by a dangerous and deceptive fallacy-a glittering and evanescent enthusiasm. I know human nature better than you, my child. I know that the best heart which ever beat in mortal bosom is, after all, selfish and exacting. I know that those very children for whom you are now willing to make the most heroic sacrifices-were such proofs of devotion necessary to test your sincerity in the cause of humanity— will be hereafter regarded by you with almost abhorrence-will awaken in your now compassionate heart the most poignant anguish, the most intolerable misery-misery of which you can have no conception, until you clasp a babe of your own to it. Oh, Emily! of all the various emotions which thrill to ecstasy the sentient soul, and forces on it the sublime consciousness of its divinity, not one is to be compared to the exquisite rapture with which a mother strains her own infant to her palpitating breast-with which she jealously challenges the love and tenderness of all around for it-with which, in holy pride, she craves that of the angels of heaven for it! Think, then-think what would be your utter agony, when you beheld the eye of your husband, of its father, wander from its worshipped face to rest more pitifully, more lingeringly, on the infants of another-the infants whom you could not, you durst not, attempt to rival or supplant-the infants who proffered their claims to his everlasting affection in the darkest hour of his despair."

"Mother! I should loathe and detest myself if I could for one instant cherish so unholy, so awful a sentiment against such helpless innocents. God forbid that I should ever be so sorely tried! God of Heaven forbid ! for we none of us know our own strength, our own weakness."

II.

Chaste Heaven! that dost the chastest love inspire,
Temper the heart, which sudden hope elates,
And calm to reason ev'ry rash desire,

As purest gold all dross precipitates!

Oh, teach me! in life's most refulgent hour,
Clouds still may overshade serenest skies;

That, when such storms appear, I may have pow'r
To face their darkness with unquailing eyes!

SOME time elapsed after Lady Lindsford's flight unmarked by any event of peculiar interest, except that Lord Lindsford had obtained his divorce, and Emily had refused two extremely eligible offers of marriage, which her mother certainly considered rather absurd; but, as she was an only child, and entitled to a large fortune, Mrs. Wentworth did not feel that necessity of coercing her inclinations which many a fonder mother is driven to who is less independent; merely observing, "that youth and beauty did not last for ever, and that every season produced its succession of younger loveliness to compete with that already admired and esteemed."

Lord Lindsford, since his domestic sorrow, had become a perfect dead letter in the annals of fashion, having retired to his country seat in the north of England; communicating with none of his former friends, and never being, by any chance, mentioned by them, he was indeed forgotten by the world-the world in which he had shone so conspicuously but a short period previously! So true it is, however—we may flatter ourselves to the contrary-that the instant we cease to contribute to the pleasure, or promote the advantage of others, we are a blank-a nonentity in their estimation.

Emily, like the rest of his acquaintances, preserved an unbroken silence respecting one who evidently did not wish or seek to be remembered; preferring to brood over his wrongs in the moodiness of uninterrupted solitude, to the sympathy of friendship, or the compassion of pity.

She was, therefore, most exceedingly amazed and agitated at receiving the following letter from him, just as she and her mother were preparing to pass the winter on the Continent:

"EMILY,-I feel that some far more powerful apology is due from me for thus presuming to address you, after my past unmanly conduct, than I have thought to dictate, or words to express. I am utterly wretched now-have been too long familiar with misery, to shrink from the additional anguish with which your resentment may oppress me. I can but be wretched should you prove inflexible; but all is not absolute despair within my heart; one spark of the vestal fire of hope yet lingers amidst its smouldering ashes, to be rekindled to a radiant glory, if you will deign to listen patiently to me, to have pity-mercy on me. Oh, Emily! I am but too conscious how poor a compliment it is to abjure you to take possession of so desecrated a fane as my polluted hearth; but I am too much in earnest to study to disguise by flattery the naked truth-too intent on success, to measure with a critical eye the rugged ground over which I must speed to reach the goal of my wishes, ere another, a more favoured competitor, robs me of the prize for which I now contend as for my very life.

"Besides, do I not know the adorable simplicity of your nature, the ingenuousness of your mind, the placability of your heart? Ought I not to be encouraged by the angelic attributes with which you are so richly endowed, to lay the wounded spirit before you which you alone can heal?