good-nature. She had adopted all her husband's opinions on this as on every other subject, but her heart was too much for her head, and, in bidding Maria good-night, she showed real feeling. The housekeeper did not present herself till later, and then she came in with a face of paleness and anxiety, and said, "Ma'am, you need not think any more of doing him good. He is gone to a better place, and has left you his blessing."

This new shock for a time completely overpowered Maria, and a long flood of tears gave her a melancholy relief. When she could again collect herself so vanishes the thought, the last tie of human kindred that belonged to me on earth-the image of the cheerful, generous, unconquerable old man rose strongly before her as she had seen him that very morning. She could hardly conceive the possibility of his so sudden death, although he had himself foreseen it. The housekeeper said, in answer to her questions, that a woman, the wife of a labourer, had come to attend on him. By her account, he had returned from the Mount much exhausted, and had lain down on his pallet, hardly able to speak. The woman, whom he had called on in his way home, and begged to accompany him, had given him drink, and after a time he had regained strength enough to explain himself, but was evidently fast declining. He was hardly alive when the housekeeper reached him, yet he seemed pleased when she mentioned who it was that had sent her. With closed eyes and joined hands he articulated very feebly, "Tell Miss Maria that I pray God to bless her-God Almighty bless her!"-A few miuutes afterwards he again opened his bright blue eyes, fixed them on the face of his visitor, with a slight smile-closed them again —and expired.

Maria, strange as it may seem, slept during the night, and dreamed that she was a child gathering daisies, which she put into a basket that Jack Fowler held for her, and which he afterwards helped her to carry and present to Mrs Lascelles. When she woke, all the occurrences of the previous day also appeared a dream. But swiftly they broke upon her; and although at first she trembled, she soon regained her strength and calmness, and felt in the very gravity and sadness of the

events a claim on her for the energy required by them. Having made up her mind as to the future, she determined to see Mr Nugent, for she knew that her presence had an ascendency over him which she would be far from equally certain of maintaining by let ter.

She went down to his study, knocked at the door, entered, and found him sitting woe-begone over a parchment pedigree, examining to whom he ought to bequeath his property. He rose at her approach, coloured, and stammered out-" Well, dear Maria-Miss Lascelles-Williams, I mean-I trust you are satisfied with the communication you received from me."-She looked at him steadily and courteously, and said "I have no complaint to make."-Then she took a chair and sat down; on which he grew more confused and more civil, and, also sitting down, said—“ Can I do any thing for you? I shall be most happy if you will let me know how I can serve you."

"Pray, have you heard of the death of my grandfather?"

"Yes; Mrs Simpson told me of it. Allow me to condole with you on the subject. I assure you I have always entertained a favourable opinion of him, and do not blame him—that is, I do not so very much blame him-for his concealment of the truth."

"Of course nobody dares imagine that any blame attaches to him. He only complied with the eager wishes of Mr Lascelles, and could not suppose himself in any way responsible for the result of his private arrangements.-But I now wish to say, that, as I have so long lived in your family, and have not, I trust, at all disgraced it, I cannot conceive myself asking any extravagant favour if I desire to be allowed to remain here until I can make all the necessary preparations for quitting the house with propriety. During that interval I trust I shall not be pained by any superfluous remarks, either on my own parentage or on the conduct of Mr and Mrs Lascelles. These are points which cannot, I think, be very decently commented on before me, in the tone of your letter. If, as I presume will be the case, you agree to my wishes in these respects, it will give me pleasure to remain with you and Mrs Nugent for some days; and I hope to show by my conduct

and demeanour that I am very sensible of the favour with which I have been so long treated both by you and her."

"It will give me great satisfaction that you should stay here as long as is convenient to you."

"I design, as soon as I can procure a suitable situation, to place myself as a governess."

"A very proper and judicious plan, and such as I should have expected from you. Is there any thing else I can do for you?"

"Yes. Be good enough to give orders for the burial of my grandfather in the most respectable manner practised among persons of his class. If," she added, with a slight look of scorn-" you are so disposed, I shall be happy to have the expense deducted from the first payment of the annuity of fifty pounds which you promised me; and I beg leave to say, that it is not my intention ever to trouble you for the payment of any further portion of it.”

Here Mr Nugent endeavoured to escape from his sense of humiliation by adopting a more cordial tone. "Oh my dear Maria, why need there be any question of money between you and me. You must be aware that it would give me much gratification to supply you to the utmost. I only spoke of a trifling annuity as thinking it might be pleasanter to your feelings than any larger income."

Baseness, thought Maria, has still one deep lower than another. She said aloud-"We shall be able to speak of this hereafter. In the meantime I rely on you for doing whatever is most right and respectful towards the remains of my grandfather. I wish them to be buried, if possible, where those of his family rest, in the burial-ground of the ruin which was the scene of the late fire. I will now go to Mrs Nugent, to whom I wish to announce that I have your permission for remaining here till I may find it convenient to remove to some other -home."

She hesitated at the last word, for she felt in pronouncing it that she had now no home on earth, and that it might, probably, be the happiest lot for her to be carried on the same road as her grandfather, to be laid beside him. She preserved, however, her self-possession, and, with an involun

tary air of indulgent condescension, shook hands with Mr Nugent before she left the room.

He immediately gave directions for having the funeral of the old basketmaker conducted with the utmost decorum, and sent a confidential person to the cottage to take charge of the arrangements, and see his orders executed. Women were employed to remain with the body, who relieved each other, and at nightfall the two sat together in the little room below, in the midst of the few implements and articles of furniture, the bench, the osiers, the tools, and the baskets. Among these was one which he had finished on the previous morning before setting out to see Maria. The women were nodding on opposite sides of a solitary candle, when they were startled by a knock at the door, and on opening it two figures were dimly seen, one of whom, a tall female, entered, wrapped in a dark cloak. She said in a low voice a few words, which, half asleep as they were, they did not understand. She then walked up the frail and narrow stair, down which a faint light shone from the chamber above where lay the body. The woman disappeared noiselessly from the eyes of the astonished watchers, and some minutes passed before they regained courage to follow her. They did so with some trembling and treading on tip-toe, and when they had gained the top of the stair they saw her kneeling beside the mean pallet-bed, bent over one hand of the corpse which she held in hers. They observed that the old man's favourite black cat had seated itself on the small table, which sustained a candie, and, while they gazed into the room, fixed steadily its pale green eyes upon them. The woman, they thought, sobbed faintly, and, looking at each other, they turned and retreated to the lower room. In the meantime the mourner looked at the tranquil face of the corpse, and then, again drawing her veil over her wet eyes, walked down the stair and passed through the room. The door was closed, but one of the women came forward and opened it, and saw the second figure in the darkness without, waiting for the one within. The visi tor to the corpse glided silently away, and the two shadows were lost in the deep night.

some of whom I had known before and some not, but you were the principal personage among them all. There were Sir Charles Harcourt and Hastings the traveller, the poet Walsingham, the wife of poor Henry Richards, the white-haired and rather short man whom I have heard you talk of as Collins, and old Fowler, your grandfather, whom I knew when I first knew you, and lived as a boy in this neighbourhood with my mother. There were also several others, and the movements and changes of the whole history turned upon a Ring."

She held up her hand before his face, which his first impulse was to kiss, but he saw that on one of the fingers was an Onyx Ring.

"How on earth did you come by that? It has haunted me as if a magic Ariel were fused amid the gold, or imprisoned in the stone."

I will tell you. My grandfather died on Tuesday evening, the time you say of your recovery. My good friend Mrs Simpson was with him at the last -brought me an old tin snuff-box which I had before seen, and which had been found grasped in the hand of the corpse. It contained a certifieate signed by Mr Lascelles and the medical man then in attendance upon his wife, that the child of Mrs Wil

liams had been received by them from Fowler, and substituted for the dead infant. In the same box, wrapped in a separate paper, was the Onyx Ring. I presume it had been given to the old man by Mr Lascelles as a token which, to him who could not read, would be more expressive than any written document, and would substantiate to his fancy the fact that the supposed Maria Lascelles owed only to accident the being other than Mary Williams."

"A curious coincidence, at least, with my visions. But as to the change of your name it is of little importance, for I hope a third will soon obliterate both the former ones. My trance, how unsubstantial soever may have been the forms I conversed with, has at least left on my mind intellectual and spiritual impressions too many, perhaps, and complex, ever to be fully described, but of which you, I trust, as well as I, may reap the benefit through all my life. Now that you keep your hand quiet and let me look at the ring close, I see the old man's head upon it is as beautifully executed as if it were one of Weigall's finest works. It bears, moreover, a curious resemblance to my uncle who has watched me so tenderly in my illness, and I could almost have supposed it a portrait of him."

SOME ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF.

BY THE IRISH OYSTER-EATER.

Squireen (loquitur). Pat, bring another "go" of brandy for the Oyster-Eater; and, Pat, you may bring another for myself, by the powers.

Doctor Snoaker. Patricius, "repetatur," as we say, ex cyatho magnoCapiat.

Pat. Another go of rum, sir? yes, sir.

Inspector. Pat, I will take "one of whisky." Christians, as the apostle Paul-

Lawyer Green Street. Pat, call a

new case.