alone-now that, unfortunately, I have no-no-- The dear girl's voice was broken by emotion, and she paused a moment ere she could resume. "Do you think, Doctor-I ask you as his oldest and best friend-do you think it would show any want of respect to my father's memory, if, after the expiration of two years, I were still to take this excellent, this exemplary, this irreproachable man as my husband?”

"None whatever, if you think he is worth the sacrifice of eight hundred a year, and Mason allows you to make it."

"That was my great fear. Knowing the depth and delicacy of his attachment, and his disinterested regard for my welfare, I doubted whether I should get his consent; but he met the proposition with the frankness of a fine and noble nature. "Were the cases reversed,' said he, 'my heart tells me that I should not hesitate a single moment to make the sacrifice to you; and I do not, therefore, hesitate a single moment in accepting the sacrifice from you. We shall still possess a moderate competency; and though I am but young, I have seen enough of the world to know that wealth without happiness is poverty, and that poverty with happiness is wealth.'"

“Mason is a wise man, and you are a sensible girl; but if you have made up your minds to this plan, why the deuce should you wait for two years? Why not marry as soon as you are out of mourning?"

"Because I would not ask Mason to take me without some sort of marriage-portion, however small. By saving for two years the greater part of the handsome income which my father assigned me in his will, I shall be enabled to reserve some surplus after buying and furnishing a small house; so that we shall literally start with love in a cottage, and a purse to meet any unexpected demands."

66

My dear Sarah, I tell you once more that you are an uncommonly sensible girl, and I approve of everything you have done or have proposed doing, though I do not think it will be necessary to defer your marriage for two years; and if you can listen to a long story, to a narrative of events so strange as to be almost incredible, I will tell you why."

With infinite tact, and the most guarded circumspection, did he then begin to prepare his auditress for the startling disclosures he had to make. First reminding her that I had been subject to suspensions of animation, some of which had continued for many hours, he added, that there were well-attested instances of trances lasting so long, that the sufferers had been buried, even after having been kept above ground for the customary week, and had actually revived, as had been repeatedly proved by subsequent inspection of coffins and vaults. "Now, your poor father," he continued, "contrary, as I well know, to your earnest and even angry remonstrances, was scandalously hurried to the grave in three days after his death. Under these unusual circumstances there would be nothing improbable in his revival, nothing improbable in his being rescued from his miserable situation-nay, it is by no means impossible that at this very moment, recovered from the effects of his premature interment, he may be

"For God's sake do not trifle with my feelings," said Sarah, starting up in the greatest agitation, and vehemently clasping her companion's hand. "Oh, if you love me, tell me, do tell me— is there a chance, a hope, a possibility, that my dear, dear father may still be living-that I may again embrace him-that I may devote myself to his recovery-that

I may testify my love, my duty, my unbounded gratitude to Heaven

by

Unable any longer to restrain the fond and impassioned yearnings of my soul, I sobbed out the words,

66 My child! my child! my own dear child!"

Recognising my voice, she uttered a cry of joy, rushed into the back room, threw her arms around me, pressed me repeatedly to her heart, and kissed me over and over, in a paroxysm of hysterical rapture.

CHAPTER XIII.

A VERY different scene, an ordeal which I both desired and dreaded, awaited me on the following day, when I had resolved to disclose my resuscitation to my unnatural son, to dispossess him of the fortune and estates he had so flagitiously usurped, and to announce to him his utter repudiation and disinheritance. He was now on a visit at Oakfield Hall, for he was too much infatuated with the designing Julia to be long absent from her. Linnel, who would not let me undertake anything of an agitating nature except under his personal guidance, accompanied me in his carriage to the Hall, where, on inquiring at the park lodge, we were informed that the party we were seeking had just entered the summerhouse with Miss Thorpe, that they might view the sport on the water, as Sir Freeman Dashwood had taken down the dogs to hunt ducks. Alighting accordingly from the carriage, and leaning on my friend's arm, I walked towards the summer-house, which stood in the immediate vicinity of the lodge; and on reaching it sat down upon the steps to recover my breath, when, the door being ajar, I became an unintentional auditor of the following colloquy :-

"I say, Julia! wasn't it lucky that the governor died before he made any alteration in his will? I shall come into lots of tin, besides all the estates. When he took a crotchet into his head he was as obstinate as a mule; and he had sworn that if ever I married you he would cut me off with a shilling."

"And if he had, dear George! it would not have made the smallest difference in my eyes. Where there is a sincere attachment, filthy lucre is never thought of. Thank Heaven, I am neither sordid nor selfish. Indeed, if there's one person in the world whom I despise more than another, it is the girl who marries for money."

"All very fine; but it's no bad thing to have the cash, whether you marry for it or not. I tell you what I have made up my mind to one thing. I'll have the best hounds and hunters in all Suffolk, and the best drag and the best racers in all England at the next Newmarket meeting. And there's another thing to which I have made up my mind: I'll marry you before the month is out."

66

What, my dear George! so soon after your father's death?"

"Yes, to be sure; why not? Waiting for a twelvemonth wouldn't make him more dead than he is, as I told Sarah when she kept up such a bother about deferring the burial. He can't expect me to be very squeamish, when he wanted to cut me off with a shilling. Cut off himself now. Ha ha ha!"

The barking of dogs and the shouts of men being heard from the water, the lovers jumped up, and leaning on the sill of the open window

gazed out upon the sport; at which moment I made my noiseless entry into the summer-house, and seated myself in one of the chairs which had just been vacated. For two or three minutes this unwelcome addition to the party remained unnoticed, but the lady at length turned round, uttered a piercing scream, and covering her eyes with her hands sank shuddering to the ground. Her companion was starting to her assistance when my figure caught his eye, and he became instantly transfixed, his eyes staring, his face petrified with horror, and his lips hoarsely ejaculating,"God of heaven! my father's ghost!"

Unable to restrain my long suppressed indignation, I rushed upon him, grappled him by the collar, and shaking him with all the vehemence in my power, I shouted in his ear,

46

No, unnatural monster! no, miscreant! no, parricide! it is your father's living flesh and blood, as this and as I grasp may convince you, would still more effectually prove by striking you to the earth, and trampling on your prostrate body, had I strength to second my will. It is the father whose life you sought to destroy-whom you hurried to the grave with such guilty precipitation-who has been snatched from the jaws of death and recovered from his trance by a series of providential mercies, in order that he may become the instrument of Heaven in exposing and punishing your atrocious crimes."

No sooner did the object of these denunciations discover that he had to deal with a human being instead of a spectre, than all his terror appeared to be dissipated; his countenance resumed its customary expression, and he cried, in his usual familiar tone,

"Well, father, I have often seen you in a passion, but hang me if ever I saw you in such a towering rage as this."

"Villain!" I resumed, for I was maddened by his audacious nonchalance, "what is the name of the chemist who sold you the poisonous mixture to which I became a victim?"

"Do you mean Raby's Restorative? capital stuff that! His name— his name? Hang me if I can recollect just now.'

"In what street of Newmarket does he live?" "Street-street? I have forgotten that too. Oh no, I haven't. I remember now; I bought it of a fellow that travels about the country." "Miserable liar! this shuffling is a confession of your guilt. With the same regard for truth you will doubtless deny that you destroyed the codicil of my will.”

"Codicil! what codicil? I am ready to take my oath that I never-" "Hold your impious tongue, and do not add perjury to your other enormities. With my own eyes, while I was lying entranced, and not dead as you supposed, did I see you tear it up and commit it to the parlour-fire."

"No!-did you, though? What an artful dodge on your part! and what a precious spoon I must have been not to shut the bed-room door!"

Not less irritated than disgusted by his obdurate manner and offensive language, I hastened the termination of our colloquy by saying,

"Hark ye, sirrah, while I address you for the last time. I have made a new will, by which you are utterly and irrevocably disinherited, with the exception of an annual pittance just sufficient to preserve you from

destitution, but only payable so long as you reside abroad. The moment you set foot upon the soil of England, its payment ceases. Here is a

letter to my London agent, who will provide you a sum of money for your outfit. Away! hide your infamy in some of our colonies; the nearer to the Antipodes the better. Avaunt! Let me never see you more! Begone before I curse you!"

"The Devil and Doctor Faustus! here's a pretty go!" was all the reply of the hardened and unfeeling reprobate; and I had hardly quitted the summer-house when I heard once more the vacant and hideous laugh by which I had been previously insulted.

Not without difficulty did my tottering footsteps support me back to the carriage; I was lifted into it by the Doctor and his servant; and was no sooner deposited on the seat than nature sank under the exertions I had made, and I fainted away.

From my knowledge of Miss Thorpe's character, I was not in the least surprised to learn that this disinterested heroine, who piqued herself upon being neither sordid nor selfish, who held in special contempt the girl that could marry for money, despatched a letter to my son on the very next day, stating that her own sacred sense of filial duty would not allow her to espouse any man against his father's consent, and that, therefore, their engagement must be considered as finally cancelled. Í never heard, however, that she returned the valuable presents made to her by her infatuated lover.

CHAPTER XIV.

WITH equal good judgment and kind feeling, my friend invited Sarah to spend a few days in his house, well knowing that her society and her assistance as a nurse would be far more efficient than all his medicaments in restoring my bodily health and my cheer of mind. On the morning of her arrival I appointed her lover to meet her, when I joined together the hands of the delighted couple; gave my formal consent to their union, sanctifying it by my blessing, and adding, that so far from lessening the sum I had originally left to my daughter, I would settle twice the amount upon her on the day of her marriage. Mason now became an almost daily visitant at the house, and neither he nor his betrothed evinced any regret when I expressed a wish that their nuptials should be solemnised without any unnecessary delay. Enraptured by the daily improvement in her father's health and spirits, combined with such a delightful and unexpected change in her own fate and prospects, my dear child seemed actually to imagine herself in heaven, and to my apprehensions she appeared to diffuse a heaven around her. Her radiant and smiling face was an incarnate sunbeam; her dulcet voice, melodised by joy, was the music of the spheres; her duteous and affectionate offices were the ministerings of a guardian angel. God bless her! there were moments when her fascinating endearments almost made me forget my repudiated son.

But they did not banish from my memory the vow made to my own soul while I was lying entranced and entombed, that in the event of my revival I would refund the sums I had unfairly gained in the execution of my government contracts. After having calculated their amount,

with interest, which raised the total to several thousand pounds, I remitted the whole anonymously to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Naturally fond of money, I always found delight in reckoning up my profits; yet can I truly declare that I experienced ten times more pleasure in refunding this portion of my fortune, than I had ever felt in legitimately gaining ten times as much.

So completely had my attention been engaged by the recent marvellous occurrences, and by the preparations for the approaching marriage so carefully, moreover, did I abstract my thoughts from the painful subject of my son-that several weeks slipped away without my adverting to the long and singular silence of the London agent to whom I had consigned him. Its cause was at length explained by the following letterfull enough, Heaven knows! of sadness and humiliation, and yet not altogether divested of mitigating considerations.

"MY DEAR FRIEND,-More than once have I taken up my pen to write to you, and as often have I wanted courage to complete my letter, fearing to afflict you with evil tidings in your present delicate state; and I have since been silent, because it required some little time to ascertain the exact situation of your son, of whose whereabouts I was left in ignorance for a whole month. On his first arrival I observed a good deal of levity, not to say wildness, in his manner and discourse, but not sufficient to denote any positive aberration of mind. He seemed quite reconciled to his immediate expatriation, and accompanied me on board a splendid vessel bound for New Zealand, in which I secured a good berth for him, and paid his passage-money. On the following morning I obeyed your directions, by advancing him a sufficient sum to provide a handsome outfit, and to give him an advantageous start on his arrival in the colony.

"That night he quitted my house, nor did I hear of him again till I learnt that he had been committed to prison for an unprovoked and violent assault, perpetrated in a drunken night brawl. From subsequent inquiries I learnt that the money he received had been lavished in riotous intemperance and excess of every sort, during which his eccentricities, freaks, and outrages, combined with his incoherent language and wild looks, had procured for him from his fellow-revellers the name of Crazy George.' Struck by the vacant expression of his features, and the rambling silliness of his language, I saw at once that he was in a state of mental alienation, brought on, as I conjectured, by his recent wildness of life; under which impression, having procured his discharge from prison, I took him to a physician, who has very extensive practice in the treatment of similar cases, and who has now seen him seven or eight times.

"His deliberate opinion, I am much distressed to state, is exceedingly unfavourable. Though the disorder of the faculties may have been more rapidly developed by recent occurrences, he does not consider it a temporary one, but arising from organic derangement, and therefore of a permanent and incurable character. He pronounces it to be a softening of the brain, a defect which gradually undermines the reasoning powers, and usually terminates in imbecility and idiocy. On my hinting that his patient was by no means a harmless simpleton, but had recently been harbouring heinous designs, he replied that a combination of cunning and contrivance with great wickedness frequently characterised the