soon after they were on the beach; but the tide not being sufficiently out, they had to wade nearly a quarter of a mile up to their middles before they rounded the neck of land that shut in the entrance to the Black Rock's mouth. This done, they struck into a by path, which conducted them to the main road, and ere the sun had been half an hour in the heavens, they were pursuing their journey back to Azledine Hall, safe from all chance of surprise or discovery.

CHAPTER XI.

Yet

Even from the bottom of these miseries,
From all that fortune can inflict upon us,
I see two comforts rising-a brave patience
And the enjoying of our griefs together.

The Two Noble Kinsmen.

WE left Mr. Azledine in prison. Let us return to him thither, and to his afflicted family.

Mrs. Azledine, with her daughters, occupied furnished lodgings in the vicinity of the prison, and could their little family circle but have been gladdened by his presence, something nearly approaching to happiness might have been found there. Time, however, that good Samaritan, which drops oil from his wings into our deepest wounds, and smooths for us the most rugged couch that adversity can prepare, gradually softened the pangs that smote upon

their hearts, as often as they stood at the prison-gate, to visit the uncomplaining captive.

Cameron had taken up his abode with his friend Aston; but, although the allowance which the latter received from his father, would have amply sufficed for the expenses of both, he could not be induced to accede to the arrangement. Those classical attainments, therefore, which had rewarded his assiduity at Oxford, and which were then intended to be nothing more than the grace and ornament of his after life, now became its support.

For a short time he filled the situation of a daily usher at a large school in the vicinity of London; but finding the duties intolerably irksome, besides having to endure innumerable petty annoyances from the person who kept the school, (a bankrupt biscuit-baker,) he soon relinquished the occupation for the more agreeable one of attending private families, where he prepared younger sons for the Universities, and helped elder ones who had already entered them, to hold fast during the vacations, what they had brought away.

Aston's father still remained inflexible upon

the subject of consenting to his union with Arabella, under the altered circumstances of Mr. Azledine's fortunes'; a resolution which' was not a little fortified by the now altered circumstances of his own fortunes. He had succeeded to the title and estates of Lord Astonford, his venerable relative having left the world in a sedan chair, in which he was discovered a lifeless corpse upon arriving at the house of a celebrated courtesan.

Aston, indeed, had made no direct attempt to influence his determination since the interview related in a former chapter; but there were moments when he would fain have persuaded himself he had waited long enough. He ventured once, and only once, to hint as much to Arabella. Her reply sank deep into his heart.

"You know," said she, "my love is now as incapable of change as if our hands had been joined at the altar; and I feel it ought to be SO. But were all other obstacles removed; were your father, my dear Aston, to give his consent to-morrow, could I put on my bridal dress while mine is in a prison ?"

No man who deserved the woman that asked

such a question as this, could answer it otherwise than Aston did, by self-accusing silence.

Cameron, on the other hand, had kept up a punctual correspondence with Caroline, but he had not seen her since the day she quitted Azledine Hall. It was settled, at the outset of this correspondence, that they should mutually abstain from all allusion to the circumstances preceding their separation, as nothing could be more injudicious than to torment themselves by dwelling upon occurrences which could not be recalled without the most poignant grief.

Caroline had been duly informed, not by Cameron, but by Arabella, who also kept up a constant correspondence with her, of all the disastrous results of Stephen's claim. From her, too, she learned the whole extent of the calamity; and many, many a tear it cost her; because, from its magnitude, she knew it to be wholly beyond any aid which she or her uncle could offer. And yet, in the gloom which misfortune had thus cast round the friends of other days, she would sometimes fancy she could discern the glimmerings of hope's torch. Adversity, which had deprived Mrs. Azledine