for, were my nephew other than he is, what has happened might have been turned to rejoicing. I trust I should have felt unfeigned delight in surrendering to him his own while he, not unmindful of the benefits he had received at my hands, nor desirous of putting an unjust construction upon an involuntary wrong, might have been satisfied to see himself possessed of his rights without having one vindictive feeling to gratify. Instead of this, he comes upon me like an enemy, hunts me to as much destruction as he can devise, and I doubt not (though wherefore I know not) accounts it not the least part of his unlookedfor prosperity, that it is accompanied with the power of driving me and mine into poverty. Be it so !"

"You say you are wholly ignorant of his place of concealment, or his course of life, during the years he has absented himself?" observed Aston.

66

Wholly," rejoined Mr. Azledine;" and I give the man who planned his escape, and kept him afterwards afterwards an instrument in his hands, credit for firmness and sagacity worthy of a better cause."

"In my mind," said the Rector, "such a cause was never better fitted with an agent. The end was wickedness-the means sin-and

the reward

wages of sin.

mark my words

will be the

The smile of the harlot is not more deceiving than the prosperity of the unjust."

"I cannot believe," remarked Aston, "that the person we are speaking of —"

"Sir Stephen Azledine, my dear friend," interrupted Mr. Azledine, smiling as he spoke. "There is no terror in the name, nor am I so weakly sensitive as to shrink from hearing him so called."

"I cannot believe," continued Aston, "that he will proceed as he has begun. When the intoxication of his sudden greatness is sobered down, there will be room for thoughts and feelings whose influence he will not be able to resist."

"He never had a thought or feeling," remarked Mrs. Azledine with extreme bitterness, "but smacked of villany. It were as reasonable to look for honey from the venomous adder, as that virtue in any shape should take her abode in a mind thus moulded."

up

"Let him not cross my path," said Cameron, knitting his brow as he spoke, "or we may chance to have an angry word or two. I bear him no ill will because he steps into his inheritance-it is his, and let him have it-as I would, were it mine; but if he make his right an engine with which to batter at the peace of others, a scourge to do the will of his own base and recreant passions, I may not choose to remain a passive spectator."

"Remember!" exclaimed his father, looking earnestly at him.

"I do remember," replied Cameron impatiently; "but-”

"I know what you would say, my son," interrupted Mr. Azledine, taking him affectionately by the hand; "and the pledge I received from you contemplated this very proyocation; your intended exception, therefore, cannot be allowed. Do not forget, too, my dear Cameron, that I shall henceforth need all the comforts it has pleased Heaven to leave me. And now let us dismiss from our conversation, from our thoughts even, if we can, a subject so little grateful.”

The travelling carriages were at the door,

VOL. III.

and their repast being soon after finished, Mr. Azledine with his wife leaning on his arm, led the way, followed by Aston and Arabella, Cameron, Bertha, and the Rector, and preceded by Judiah, with the heaviest heart at that moment of any man in Christendom. In the great hall, the whole of the servants were assembled in respectful, melancholy silence; poor Mrs. Kilpin alone being absent, because, as she said, she "knew she should not be able to contain herself." No one spoke. The first words that were uttered, fell from the quivering lip of the Rector, who, as the carriages drove off, exclaimed with up-lifted hands and eyes, "The blessing of Almighty God attend you all!"

Q

CHAPTER III.

Oh! what a noble combat hast thou fought
Between compulsion and a brave respect.

King John.

WE have shown how Mr. and Mrs. Azledine were affected by the occurrences that had taken place; but we have said nothing of any one else, and especially of two persons whose happiness seemed to be utterly blighted. is hardly necessary to add that we mean Aston and Arabella.

It

When Aston learned from his father the reason of that prohibition which dragged him from his betrothed on the eve of their marriage day, he treated it with disdainful indifference. The loss of fortune was one of the last circumstances which, in his mind, would carry with it any prejudice to the individual by whom it was sustained; and least of all could it do so in a case where the individual