ness.

Their letters of congratulation are positively as servile as those addressed by a mandarin of the first button to the cousin of the sun and moon!-The parson places himself at my feet. The Honourable, which is still more offensive, affects to treat me as now, for the first time, on his level."

"And that very loose fish, Wroughton ?"

"Is abroad, and has not yet heard of my sudden Croesus-ship, which the London papers learned from the Liverpool press. Yet I did everything in my power, when on the spot, to stifle the report."

"But why stifle it or affix so much importance to its results? These little ebullitions of human weakness should serve to amuse you."

"Not while I bear in memory that a fiftypound note vouchsafed by one of my sisters, might have afforded means to preserve the life of my poor boy!"

"But did you apply to them ?--or did your

frowardness estrange you from them, as from

myself?-Before all things, my dear Woolston, let us be just. The pride of poverty is almost as paltry a weakness as purse-pride : and in that respect, who shall bear you blameless? Take the advice of an old epicurean. Let by-gones be by-gones. Make the best of those connected with you, both great and small. Do not render uneasy a pathway paved, by the favour of providence, with gold and marble, by sowing thorns in the interstices."

John Woolston felt rebuked. But he endeavoured to defend himself by muttering something about "conscience-sake," and the “impossibility of reconciling earnestness of purpose with flexibility of principle. He could not for mere expediency pretend to be insensible to the insults offered to his wife."

"You will know better by and by, my dear John," said Farmer, patting him on the shoulder with a provoking air of superiority. "Time will teach you that it is scarcely worth while to add to the inevitable evils of this world, by stings

and bitternesses, as vexatious to those who inflict, as to those who suffer them. Peace and peace of mind are better things than all the retaliation in the world."

But on this point, his former pupil chose to think for himself; and when Mrs. Woolston was sufficiently recovered to take possession of the apartments he had engaged for her at the Clarendon Hotel, with the kind Sophy as her companion, his only prohibition regarded visits from his family.

Maria was a little inclined to remonstrate: for in her father's house, divisions in families were accounted sinful. Shy as she was, moreover, and enfeebled by recent illness, she felt that the support of her sister-in-law, Mrs. Molyneux, would, in the bewildering world she was about to enter, prove an incalculable advantage.

But her husband had now little leisure for domestic discussions. His time was bespoken by a pressure of business such as he had never fancied could devolve upon any other shoulders

than those of a Chancellor of the Exchequer ; and he was beginning to find the intrusions of his men of business quite as troublesome as he had ever found it to supervise the business of other people. If a little careless concerning the opinions and occupations of his wife, he probably fancied the consciousness of opulence a sufficient enjoyment.

As if that crowded metropolis were not to her as dreary as the desert!—As if, still mourning and still in mourning for the boy so fondly loved, she could find pleasure in gaudy shops, or crowded parks !—

One day, having dispatched Janetta and her aunt in the carriage to Kensington Gardens, to enjoy their daily exercise, poor Mrs. Woolston, while reclining despondingly on the sofa, began to tax herself, as with a crime, with the weariness of spirit that overwhelmed her. "Bored" was a word prohibited in the vocabulary of Denny Cross; the good old squire asserting that the state of feeling it announced was an

offence against the Almighty, who has created so glorious a world for the enjoyment of the

human race.

While she was still searching in her not very capacious mind for a synonym that described the lassitude of heart and soul arising from her recent trials and her strange displacement in life, the head waiter threw open the door, with an announcement which the rumbling of passing carriages rendered unintelligible; and a rather handsome and very fashionably-attired woman advanced eagerly towards her.

Mrs. Woolston was thoroughly embarrassed; for she felt that it could be only one of her husband's sisters who ventured to address her as "Maria." Her visitor was doubtless Mrs. Molyneux. Yet in the self-possessed lady before her, there was as little of the somewhat hoydenish baronet's daughter of the Northampton balls, as of the Squire of Denny Cross's rosy daughter, in her pale and low-voiced self.

"That poor John should have thrown himself