indigo, and spice, and sugar, could swallow up such vast sums of money, and realize so little profit; but though he had to mortgage nearly all his available estates (and his power extended to the greater part), he never suffered this continuous drain upon his worldly substance to disturb his earthly happiness, still less to divert him from his spiritual duties. Nor was it likely that, to a heart so woe-begone as his had now become, the mere discovery of immense loss could be a very heavy trial: so that when, in his years of wandering, he went to the Indies, whence all this fabulous wealth of which he had heard was to come, he found only too sure proofs that his own real wealth had been irretrievably squandered in speculations, which even he, with his mere common sense and good judgment, would have pronounced unsound, had he been fairly insensed into the concern at the first. On his return to England he wound up all his affairs with promptitude and honour, and found that though he had fallen from the height of prosperity on which his forefathers had placed him, he had still an ample fortune for his simple habits, and his son, if he were only spared, would still rank with the gentry of the land. He could not if he would-but then long ⚫before, he would not if he could-return to his once dear home; and being desirous of getting altogether out of his old neighbourhood and old companionship, he spent one day only in his native village, that he might drop his tributary tear upon the new-made grave where his aged rector lay, then passed on to the town of Arlton, in which his cousin, Mr. Drake, had procured for him a home such as he had desired to possess. He relinquished the actual responsibilities of the ministerial work, for he felt he was unstrung, and unfitted for a task which he conceived to be so solemn. He had given the family living, as his father had done, to a needy but exemplary and devoted college friend; and from that time he looked upon his every day, and every talent, and all the rich resources of his mind, as dedicated to the education of his only son, for whom he had no common love,-great as that must ever be in every virtuous mind—but a jealous, fearful, aching, restless, anxious feeling, which arose from the sad history of the mother's dire affliction, and its degrading symptoms.

Thaisa :-"A withered branch, that's only green at top;
The motto, In hac spe vivo.”·

PERICLES.

"Perseverance, dear my lord,

Keeps honour bright. To have done, is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty nail

In monumental mockery. Take the instant away;
For honour travels in a strait so narrow,

Where one but goes abreast. Keep, then, the path;
For, emulation hath a thousand sons,

That one by one pursue. If you give way,
Or hedge aside from the direct forthright,
Like to an entered tide, they all rush by
And leave you hindmost;

Or, like a gallant horse fallen in first rank,
Lie there for pavement to the abject rear,
O'errun and trampled on."

Ulysses, in TROIL. AND CRES.

"At which time would I, being but a moodish youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking; proud, fantastical, apish, shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles; for every passion something, and for no passion truly anything."-Rosalind.

K

Book Third.
THE SECRET,-A CURSE.

CHAPTER I.

A BRANCH FROM THE WITHERED TREE.

CHARLES BARTON was but five years old when the fatal stroke severed him from a mother's watchful love. For some time previous to her removal he had been kept at a distance, that his early tenderness might not be wounded, the recollection of his mother spoiled for ever, and his own future clouded with the knowledge of her weakness and her fate. When he returned to his stricken home, when he felt the convulsive pressure of despair with which his mourning father bade him welcome, he needed not the confirmation of silent rooms, dejected servants, nor the gentle pity with which all about him attended to his wants and humoured his whims, to tell him that the bright presence of a mother was withdrawn, to greet him no more. He did not ask, for he felt that she was dead; and with all the sincerity of kind intentions, the inmates of the house silently sanctioned the mistake. while walking hand in hand with his father through the quiet churchyard, he wondered that he had never thought before of his mother's grave. He recalled the vehement grief which

Once,

he had felt when he had stood in the old chancel with that fond mother, and had mingled tears with hers above the grave of his little sister and brother; and now he could not hold from asking to go there, with the sad and lonely parent by his side, to weep anew, and as he thought with heavier reason for those tears, because a mother lay there now.

But

the suspicion that she was alive never crossed his mind for years after; and as his father almost immediately broke up the establishment, and travelled in distant countries, and returned to England with a confirmed repugnance to the old home, and a strong determination to put beyond the immediate circle of his association all that might recall his own great loss, or awaken the boy's curiosity, no opportunity arose in the course of many years, of becoming aware of the actual existence of that mother, or of the sad plight in which her life was wasting away. New friendships drowned the memory of the past. New pleasures, new ambitions, new excitements of every kind, drove out the gloomy bygone of his life. The years of foreign travel, with their dim but crowded pictures, served as a gulf by which he was kept utterly separate from the past; and if there were occasionally some of his father's visitors who eyed him with unusual interest, or pressed his hand with an unusual warmth, they were too solicitous for his tranquillity of mind ever to whisper or to hint the terrible secret-terrible even to them, but in all probability pregnant with mischief to him, if ever he should come to know it. No intentional restraint was put upon him by his father, neither in regard to his studies, nor in the kind of amusements he pursued. But the habitual sadness of Mr. Barton was in itself a constraint on the gaiety of a lad, and the anxiety which never left his heart for an instant, gave to his countenance and to his tones a wistful, suspicious, nervous expression which, though never misconstrued by his boy into anything like severity, certainly did produce a feeling of shyness and awkwardness at times, which no tenderness of affection on the part of one or the other could wholly charm away. Occasionally this went so far, that the lad thought he was watched, and in the natural resentment arising from such a thought, he would sigh for the unexplored freedom of a public school. He could not, however, fail to be profoundly touched with the wretchedness of his father even at the prospect of a few days' separation; and many a time, when softened more than usually by the profuse and thoughtful kindness with which every desire was anticipated, he generously vowed that as he was, beyond doubt, the very world to his father,