that I bear the stamp of premature age? Ah, my daughter! gladly would I lay me down in the silent dust, if it would bring back peace to thy heart, and bloom to thy faded cheek. I have accumulated wealth, which late I regarded as worthless, but I now bless God for it, since it will procure comforts and luxuries for thee and our Athenais. Little did I think for whom I was toiling, or oh! how sweet would that toil have been to me; little did I think, when I undertook with a weary spirit, this journey to Athens, that a merciful God would restore to me the child of my Eudora the last remaining treasure of my heart. Oh, my God! in thee have I trusted and thou hast not forsaken me; tho hast comforted the wounded in spirit and caused the tears of the mourner t cease."

CHAPTER XXI.

Alas! alas! that so bright a moon

Should be hidden by the clouds!

FROM THE PERSIAN.

CAN the crushed lily revive? can the rose that has the canker-worm in its breast, bloom on with its kindred flowers of the garden, until the time appointed by nature for yielding up at once its beauty and its odorous existence ? No-for a time we are deceived; the splendour of its hue is undiminished, but the silent work of ruin goes on until the last petal has withered, and the wreck of its beauty is strewn on the earth. Thus do sensitive hearts, pierced by the shafts of unkindness, hide their anguish from all around them, giving faint hopes, from day to day, that time will alleviate their sufferings, and re

VOL. II.

store to them the sweet balm of peace, while nerve by nerve those hearts are breaking. All that was of earth mingles with its kindred dust; and all that is heavenly ascends to join the glorified in realms above.

There is a simple tomb in Athens, composed of one single slab of white marble; a stripling palm-tree waves over it its light graceful foliage; and, as the sun goes down in summer glory, behind the purple hills of the Morea, one ray of splendour falls there, illumining for a moment the short inscription; then the shadows of prouder monuments lengthen around, and veil all in obscurity: as sorrow darkened her life who now sleeps so calmly within it. The epitaph that is carved on the marble, is one that she loved-it is one that he, whose falseness had laid her there, had fixed in her memory, it is—

"Farewell." A white rose has been seen, placed above that motto; 'tis said there was on it a blemish, inflicted by some profaning touch; but that spot on its delicate texture seemed only to enhance the dazzling white of the surrounding petals-meet emblem of her whose grave it perfumes. On her name alone rests one detracting shade-her soul is all pure and spotless.

Few sounds disturb the sacredness of the spot; sometimes, in the stillness of evening, the faint wailing of a child has been heard there, or the deep halfsuppressed bursting of manly sorrow.

But what, it may be asked, was the fate of him whose heart, insensible to so much gentleness, such unvarying devotion, betrayed the fond trust reposed in him? Did not his cruelty meet its reward? Did affluence, did literary fame, did the world's splendour lull to

sleep the voice of conscience? Did domestic peace dwell with him-did the society of his brilliant, beautiful bride banish from his recollection the wrongs he had inflicted on Reine Canziani ? or, did her image present itself to him, bowed down with suffering, her melancholy but unrepining countenance, looking just as when they parted for ever? Surely he was doomed never to know happiness more.

FINIS.

LONDON:

W. LEWIS, FINCH-LANE, CORNHILL.