ARTHUR'S preparations for his voyage were now begun and continued with vigour. In the course of the rummage which usually precedes any great migration of self and all worldly goods, his eye suddenly lit upon the identical packet with which he had been entrusted by George Shenstone previous to their embarkation on board the Jessy, and which he had agreed to open in the event of the, at that time, improbable death of the unfortunate young man. Until this moment the transaction had escaped Arthur's memory, and at the period of its occurrence, there was so slender a likelihood of such a catastrophe, that he had attached little or no weight to the circumstance.

His first care now was to fulfil his engagement, and with a heavy heart he broke the seal. The first

words that met his eye were addressed to himself, they ran thus:

"Should it be ordained by Providence that this packet be opened by yourself, the author of its contents will be numbered with the dead. Let not any motives, however pure, any feeling however honourable, deter you from fulfilling to the letter the purport of the documents it accompanies. Neither let this peremptory mode of entreaty shock or disgust you. Read steadfastly to the end, and then judge of the writer and his intentions. We have now been intimately acquainted for a long season. Our intercourse has been so unreserved as to convey a conviction that no two individuals can be more thoroughly conversant with the feelings and sentiments of the other. But although on your side I believe this complete unreserve to have existed, it is not so with me. There' are, alas! many subjects connected with my sad history, that I dare not, cannot touch upon, many passages of my life known to but one individual in this hemisphere. Arthur, that individual is your future wife, Alice Graham. Start not at the name; you have no cause for fear. Alice Graham is true to you, and to you only. But though true to you, the kindly feelings of her heart, have not been ever shut out from sympathy with her fellows of either sex, from compassion for their vices, from interest in their wellbeing. I need not now fear to own the truth; the voice of a rival uplifted from the grave will have no terrors, nay will even disarm anger. Rival did I say?

Alas! I have been no rival to you. Arthur, fervently, devotedly have I loved Alice Graham. She pitied and consoled me; but my love could never meet with a return from such as her.

"Innocence and purity and perfection love guilt, crime, and remorse! No, to you she was ever true, to you and you alone. Happy, happy Arthur! Happy, for you are unstained by crime, unpursued by remorse! happy, for you are blessed by Alice's love! thrice happy, for shortly she will be yours for life! For Alice Graham's sake I first sought you; anxious, nay, jealous of her happiness, aware of the barrier that divided you, I resolved to judge for myself of your character, and according to the opinion I formed of your worthiness to possess a pearl of so costly a price, I determined to remove that barrier or not. I soon learned to love you for your own sake; I found you deserving of Alice's love, I deemed that her welfare might safely be trusted in your hands, and I resolved that that barrier should cease to exist.

"You have known but the latter part of my life. You are little aware of the stormy passages that have gone before; you little imagine that the friend you have chosen is tainted with every vice; that the man who has set himself up as a judge of your character, is himself sullied by every crime-nay, that accident alone has rescued him from an ignominious forfeiture of his life, to the offended laws of God and man. Could it then be possible, that Alice Graham should love such a man? Could it then be possible, that

those rumours which had reached you, and of which on my first arrival I discovered you to be aware could indeed those rumours have any foundation in fact? I am indeed the man whose name has been coupled with Alice Graham's, and though on our first acquaintance I was desirous for both our sakes of concealing this fact from your knowledge, I have now no longer any motive for such concealment. Yes, Arthur, in life and in death, I am the devoted to Alice Graham, your future wife. To her I refer you for the details of my sad story; from her I first received peace of mind, such peace of mind at least as one of my stamp could enjoy. Cherish her, Arthur, doat on her as I have done, and that you may receive that summit and perfection of earthly bliss, your love returned, is the fervent prayer of your affectionate friend, GEORGE SHENRTONE."

The astonishment of Arthur in perusing this extraordinary letter, may be more easily conceived than described. Shenstone, his friend and associate, sullied by every crime! Shenstone, whom he had been accustomed to look up to as the best of men, tainted with every vice, and rescued by accident alone from an ignominious death! Impossible! And yet how account for the fact he had thus solemnly stated? The idea of aberration of intellectual power was forbidden by the evidence of his strikingly able mind. His nice sense of rectitude-his exemplary moral conduct, his strong attachment to the duties pre

scribed by religious faith, from which source he appeared to deduce every motive for action, dismissed the probability that he should, at any anterior period, have been regardless of them; at the same time, should such a case have occurred, should Shenstone have been betrayed into crime or even error, the very existence of these feelings in his mind would occasion a remorse so poignant as to account for the peculiarity in his character already described, and which had not altogether escaped the observation of his friend, and as such would contribute to the production of the foregoing effusion. For the solution of the problem, for the explanation of the mystery, he must trust to his future wife, to his lady love, and his original desire to meet her, was not a little enhanced by the interesting information she would have to impart.

But this letter was not the only document the packet contained; on unfolding a second and more voluminous paper, he discovered a will, duly signed, dated, and attested, the purport of which, on further examination, he found with amazement to be a deed, bequeathing to Alice Graham and himself, jointly, Shenstone House, and its surrounding estates, with the reservation only of a considerable legacy to each of his surviving sisters. Subjoined to this paper was a memorandum in Shenstone's handwriting, inscribed to Arthur, stating for his satisfaction, and in order that his delicacy should not be alarmed at the somewhat unusual course pursued by his friend with regard to his estate, that, with the exception of his sisters, he